Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Pat Boone

Transcript

Pat Boone · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the pot West That's Podcast.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: My guest today is the one and only at Boon,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Pat glad to be talking to well, glad to talk
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: to you, But I've got to correct what you just said.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: I'm not the one and only Pat Boone. My brother
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: is married to another one. Really is life is Patricia
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: and that makes her another Pat Boon. Okay, hopefully there's
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: not too much confusion. A little bit of trivia, know
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: though they can tell us apart for sure. Okay, you're
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: pretty active on social media. Do you have someone do
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: that for you or do you do it yourself? It
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: takes a circus here for me, as you've noticed that,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I have to have people who actually know where the
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: buttons are how to push them. I'm trying to catch up.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I you know, I'm I'm in about I'm about up
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: to in tech, but I'm trying to get into one
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: and I'm just I'm not there yet. Okay, do you
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: have a smartphone? Do you use it? Yeah? I do
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: I have that. I'm using that pretty well, although I
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: lost it yesterday and I couldn't even figure out how
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: to get to where it is. I had to call
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: my tech guy, and and he got on his computer
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: and located it. It was in my house up in
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: the bathroom, but I couldn't find it. So I am
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: not a tech whiz. Okay, let's go back. You grew
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: up in Nashville. I did. I was born in Jacksonville, Florida,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: but I grew up in Nashville. Yet, but what what
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: age did you move to Nashville to age of two?
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: And my brother one year younger than me at the
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: age of one, and my dad a building contractor, architect,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Mama registered nurse, and they moved from uh, from Florida,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: from from actually Tallahassee. Although I was born in Jacksonville
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: and and then to Nashville where I grew up. Yeah,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm a I'm a homeboy in Nashville, but also
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: in Florida. Okay, So what motivated them to move to Nashville.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: My dad, as I say, an architect and uh and
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: it would be contractor, building contractor. His uncle, uncle Jack Boone,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: had his own contracting company in Nashville, very successful. So
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: his nephew, Archie A. Boone, the first Boon in the
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: phone book. You can't get ahead of a A Boone
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: And so uh, he was offered the the job with
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: his uncle, and he moved to Nashville and Mom and
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: his two boys and eventually two daughters as well. And uh,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: and he not only became a very valued partner employee,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: but eventually when the time came for the opportunity, he
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: had junior partners with him when Uncle Jack retired, and
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: I was able to, thank God to help him obtain
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: ownership of his own company. It was called the Boon
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Contracting Company anyway, and his partners weren't Boone's. Okay, So
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: you're born in the middle of the depression, your father
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: has a job. What was your economic situation growing up
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: in the family, I would say lower middle class. Uh. Daddy,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: as I say he was, he worked for his uncle.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: He didn't have it was not his own company for
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: a long time. And uh. And after my brother and me,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: he and Mama had daughters, and soon he had four kids.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: We did not have a car until I was in
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: the eighth grade. We had to we had the company
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: pickup truck, Boon Contracting. Now you have to get six people,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: my mom and dad and four kids into that. It
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: was not a big It was not a big pickup
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: truck like today, and so he built a wood uh
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: he was a carpenter as well, so he built nice
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: wooden bench in the back from my brother and me,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: and we thought it was really fun during the earlier days,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: riding in the back, the wind whipping us and all that.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: When we were six, seven, eight years old, and the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: two girls got to ride up front with Mama. On
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: rainy days though, and snowy days, really cold weather. Somehow
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: we would cram Mama, Daddy, me, my brother and two
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: sisters into the cab of that little truck. So by
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: the time I was in the sixth grade, I kept begging, Daddy,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: can't we have a car, just anything with doors on
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: it that I we can, we can get out of
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: the back of the truck riding in the wind and
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: so on. Of course it was embarrassing. He takes us
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: to school on rainy days. Of course we'd have raincoats
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: and hats but our umbrellas. But we were getting out
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: of the back of a truck at the at the
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: grammar school, and even kids were from I think poorer circumstances.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: They come up or the church in cars of son
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: some type. But Daddy was frugal and he said, we'll
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: buy a car when I can afford it. And you
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: boys are well taken care of on that bench in
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: the back. And today, as I ride along the freeway
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: and I see uh tenerants and laborers sitting in the
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: back of trucks being whipped along the free we I
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: always want to lean and say, hey, I've been there,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I've done that. Okay, I've been to Nashville. But obviously
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: many years later, and there's downtown in the suburbs. How
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: far did you live from downtown Nahville. We were outside
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: the city limits at that point. We were out on
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Granny White Pike. Granny White Pike, and it's still called
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: that today. It is now in the city limits that
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: city of them as were greatly expanded, but we were
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: outside And and then off Granny White Pike was Lone
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Oak Road, a little road off the side. It was
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: called Lone Oak Road because during earlier days there was
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: a lone Oak that served as a hanging tree kremlins
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: who sometimes hung on that Lone Oak well. That went
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: eventually from Granny White Pike to a thriving part of
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Nashville called Green Hills, And it's one of the really
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: prestigious places to live. That and Bell Mead in Nashville,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: the high class places. But it's a mile or two
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: long Lone Oak Road until you get to Granny White Pike.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: And just off Granny White Pike is still that house
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: where I grew up brother and two and two sisters.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: And when I'm in Nashville, I don't go to a motel.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: I go right to the oh nine Lone Oak Road,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: very close to the side of the road. Nice house,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: but very modest and upstairs. Uh. After the two boys
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: and the two girls moved out, Uh, we you know,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: went to school or married or whatever, and uh and Daddy,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: being a contractor and better off by then turned what
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: had been an attic uh into a set and floor
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: where he created a nice bedroom in bathroom mama, and
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: a guest room. And that's where I always stay. And
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: what had been the attic that I claimed when Nick
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: and I my brother were sixteen and fifteen, we were
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: sharing the same bed and we each wanted our own bed,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: you know, and so I asked if I could have
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: the attic. Well, it was just an unfinished attic where
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: you know, you put all this stuff you don't have
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: room for downstairs and old clothes and suitcases and boxes.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: But I put a cop mom and Daddy let me
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: have the attic, and I called it my penthouse at sixteen,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: and I slept on the attic and Nick could have
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: the nice bed downstairs. So do you go to public
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: school or religious school? And what kind of student are you?
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: And how do you fit in with the people. Well,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: it's both. I was in a secular school called Burton Elementary,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: and it was by road up your White Pike about
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: half a mile, but if you go down Lon Oak
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Road and up it's about three quarters of a mile.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Or if you cut across the back pasture behind our house,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: it's like a quarter of mine because Daddy had bought
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: ten acres and this little house for five thousand dollars
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: in I guess it was and uh, And I was
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: six years old when he when he when we moved
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: to that house. So when when I was running late,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: as I often was, I would just run across the
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: back pasture, watching where I stepped because we had cows
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: and um, and then go through the fence and get
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: to my class on time. But otherwise I would either
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: let Daddy take me, or I would take a bike.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, by the time I was well, I was
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: still in high school, I could ride my bike and
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: I did, and so you know, I just got by.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: I figured out how to make it that way. That
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: was a secular school, but when high school time came,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: we were strong Christians. We had Bible studies in our
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: home and went to church service every time, and the
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: door was open. So I knew then and I wanted
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: a my education, but in a Christian context, I mean,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: for me at thirteen, this was I think an unusual choice.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: All my friends were going to secular high schools. But
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: I wanted to go to Lipscomb High School, which was
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: a Christian high school and college. And but but to
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: do that, I had to help Daddy economically. And so
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: my brother and I worked in the summertime as laborers
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: and the Boon Contracting company, digging ditches, pouring concrete, pushing wheelbarrows,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: toting lumber for the carpenters. And we earned the handsome
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: price I think that first year of a dollar quarter
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: an hour, and we would put that aside to help
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: pay for clothes and books, and knew the truition in
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: the Christian high school was not that great. But with
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Daddy with two boys and two girls, he was having
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: to you know, really pinch pennies. He had to pay
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: his taxes after all. And in the contracting business, by
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: the way, uh, you you make bids on the jobs
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: you want to do, and you're competing with others who
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: want that same job. And at that point it was
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: just houses. It went eventually to be high schools, college dorms, uh,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: military installations, churches. I mean he got big for Daddy eventually,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: but back then, to bid on a house, he had
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: to try to make the lowest bid, but still a
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: bid that he could do it for in that price,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: because if he didn't get it built well for what
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: he bid it, he had to eat the rest himself.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: So Daddy, you know, with four kids, you know, Mama
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: was something of not a spendthrift. But I always compare
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: them to democrat in the Republican Mama wanted come one,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: come all, not just people, but pets, dogs, cats, come
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: and come on eat. We got plenty. Daddy was the Republican.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Wait a minute, I've got a budget here. I gotta
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: pay for this somehow. And that yin and yang was
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: what we lived with. So you have ten acres. You
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: have cows. What else is going on that land? And
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: are you milking the cows? Who's doing all that work? Yes, yes,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: to that, all of it. We also had pigs. Sometimes
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: we had fenced off areas for pigs. We had to
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: we had to slop the hogs. We had chickens. We
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: had turkeys and rabbits. We had a vegetable garden on
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: some of that, a big vegetable garden which Nick, my brother,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: and I and sometimes the sisters helped with. Daddy somehow
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: found the time to take care of all that. But
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: we had to work like we were really on a farm,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: which we were. I milked the cows and Nick and
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: I took turns. We usually only had one cow to
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: milk because the rest we were either raising to sell.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: But we only need one good milk cow. And the
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: one that that I melt most was a milk a
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: cow named Rosemary a Jersey, and she she was incredible
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: milk producer. My brother and I were known to drink
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: as much as a gallon a day a piece, because
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: we drink a quarter milk for breakfast, and a quarter
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: milk with lunch if we were home, and then a
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: quarter milk for dinner and then more doing our homework
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: before we went to bed, I mean, and then we
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: made butter and uh sometimes well we didn't make cottage
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: cheese and we didn't have enough of that, but we
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: could sometimes churn and make butter. And we learned what
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: blue john milk was. If the if the cows eight onions, uh,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: and we had plenty of them growing out there in
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: the past. It infiltrated the milk and turned its sour.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: But we learned to use that and cooking, and sometimes
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: we just drink it. Blue john milk it was called,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: but you know it was it was really like a farm,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: and we milked Rosemary, my brother and I took turns.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: He would milk. We we worked it out this way.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: I would milk one night and the next morning, and
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: then he would milk the next night and the next morning,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: so that we each milked only once a day. The
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: only trouble was sometimes one of us would forget that
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: we hadn't done the milking on that particular occasion, and
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: we met an angry cow whoever had to milk the
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: next one that after one session had been skipped. But
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: but it was that's what it was that cows would
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: get out once in a while go through the neighbor's
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: yards who didn't have cows, and we'd have to go
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: chase them. And sometimes they'd be going through the laundry
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: hanging on the neighbor's lines, and I had to go
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: chase the family cow and get her back in, and
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: we'd prepare the fence. But that was part of my
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: growing up days. Until I was well into high school.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: I was still milking rosemary while I was dating the
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: girl I was going to marry eventually. Okay, so in school,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: are you a popular kid? Are you a good student? Oh? Yes,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: yes I can. I can truthfully say yes because I
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: was insatiably curious active. I wanted to be involved in everything.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: When I got to be as a freshman, I laid
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: out Not that I was that methodical, but but I
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: did think about what I wanted to accomplish in high school.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: I wanted, first of all, to make straight A grades,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: which I did eventually. Somewhere along the line, they did
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: an i Q test, And what they've told me Mama
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: and others that were in school with me, is that
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: that my i Q was reported at one seventy, which
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: is very high. Well, that put a heavy responsibility on me,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: and so I did make straight a's in all my classes.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: I never made bees and anything. And uh I I
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: was president of the of the secon the sophomore class,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: and then I set my sides to be president of
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: the student body. And now it was a smallish Christian
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: high school of maybe three students. That's not big, but
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: it was our little world. And so when I was
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: like sophomore and junior, I would try to make friends
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: with the freshman coming in because I knew from experience
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: that the juniors and seniors couldn't care less about the
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: those ignorant little sophomores and freshmen, but they were going
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: to vote on who was going to be the student
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: body president towards the end of the junior year. So
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: when the time I was a school UH cart I
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: was on all the teams baseball, basketball, we didn't have football.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: I was captain the baseball team and UH and and
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I was I was good on the basketball team, but
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: not the star. But I was good and very active
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: and on the A team. And then UH school cartoonists.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: I wrote a sports column for the paper, and I
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: mean I was and when the day came along. We
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: had to have a clean up day. I would volunteer
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: to be the chairman of clean up day. I mean
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: I was angling towards being the student body president. Well,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: the day came but for the election, and I had
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: made friends with all the sophomores and freshman But a
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: guy was transferred from a from a reform school to
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: our school. Who was he was? They brought him in,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I thought, hoping they could redeem him. But all he
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: was a great athlete and he became all state baseball basketball.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Russ Wingo was his name, and he decided to run
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: for student body president. Well guess what the athlete won
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: the election. I was. I was so taken back. I
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: mean I was crushed. I had set my size for
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: three years and and worked at it and did all
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: these things. And then Rush Wingo comes along. And because
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: he can we didn't have three point shots, but he could.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: He could score, and he could. He was good in
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: baseball A well, I so was I. But that wasn't
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: good enough. So the summertime came and I got over
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: my initial pain and decided I would do the Christian thing.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: And I went to Russ. I said, look, Russ uh,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: you're the you have the president student body, but you're
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: gonna have to represent us in the regular school associations
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: with other high schools, and uh, I know you're gonna
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: be busy. And I didn't want to say you don't
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: know how to do it, and uh so if you want,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: I'll represent you as the president, but I'll do some
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: of that that grunt work for you. And he said,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: oh boy, okay, yeah, you do that. I don't know
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: how to do any of that stuff. So I was
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: willing to be his surrogate. But guess what happened during
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: the summer. He was older, he was older than we were.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: He had been in a reform school and so he
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: was like eighteen, and he and one of the girls
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: during the summertime got married. I'm not sure what caused
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: that to happen, but they did get married in the summertime.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: And then we come back to school. It turns out
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: that our bylou by laws said you can't be married
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: and be the student body president. So we had another
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: election and I was elected. I became the student body
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: president after all, and that unlikely. After I was willing
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: to give up and serve him, and you know, there
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: was a great lesson than that. For me. It's stuck
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: with me all my life. You know, you don't lose
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: by by helping somebody else win. Okay, Now was there
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: music in the house? And when did you realize you
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: could sing well? I was asked that recently. I said,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: I was singing before I ever thought about being a singer,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: because it was part of our emily. First of all,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: in church, we all sang in church and and and
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: our church background didn't even have piano, no instrumental music
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: because we didn't see an example for it in the
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: New Testament, so we didn't have piano Oregon. It was
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: all acapella. So in all of our church experiences, Daddy
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: was singing bass, Mama was singing soprano, and then my
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: sisters would maybe learn how to sing an alto part,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: and my brother would sing tenor. And I tried to
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: sing bass along with Daddy. So we were singing uh
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: in church every church service, and then at home we
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: would sing some of the church songs. And then at
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: school and Mama played a little ukulele and a few
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: chords that somebody had taught her. I learned those few
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: chords so I could make them sort of uh fit
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: any kind of song I wanted to sing, usually simple
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: songs or church songs. I could use those few chords
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: um to to accompany me my brother, And so we
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: sang songs and our family gatherings like I want to
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: take he said, a middle journey. Well, I set my
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: heart leddies said he could sing the harmony part, or
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: I would too. I would either he could sing melody,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: I sing harmony, sentimental journey. And so we would sing
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: those songs and our family gatherings. They loved it, you know,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: pat Nick singing the songs and maybe Mama playing the
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: ukulele or me doing it and then uh. And then
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: at school, when anything came along for anybody to do
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: some singing, I'd raise my hand because I knew I
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: could and I liked it. And then if there was
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: ever anything for a solo part in a school function,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: you know, well the teacher learned that I could carry
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: the tune, carry the melody and do it. And even
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: when I got into college, but in high school, I
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: became known as blue Moon Boone because whenever there was
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: some kind of anything going on in our Christian high
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: sto cool and there was a lot of singing going
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: on then, and you know, we put on little shows
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: and have entertainments, and it's singing at parties and you know,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: packed and carry a tune, he can sing and uh.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: And so I became known as blue Moon Boone because
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: if at the drop of a hat, anybody, any if
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: you need a guy to sing a song, I would
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: sing blue Moon. You saw me standing alone, without a
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: dream in my heart, without a love of my own.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: And the girls liked it, and the guys put up
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: with it. They thought it was fine it they didn't
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: have to do it, and so it was. It was
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: just a fun thing that I learned I could do now.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: When I was about twelve thirt um, mama or somebody
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: took me to the bell Meat Happiness Club, which was
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: in bell Meat, nice neighborhood, nice theater and and on
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Saturday afternoons it was a place where mama's could bring
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: all their kids for about three hours because there would
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: be cartoons. There would be if you can remember, cereals,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: I mean Westerns and Perils of Pauline and comed comedy,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: uh cereals and then uh and then a movie that
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: was appropriate for kids, you know, and the manager of
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: that theater was Dr Jordan's. Ed Jordan's he was from
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: vaudeville days, so he thought it'd be nice to have
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: a little, uh, little vaudeville show before the movie started,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: to even make the thing a little longer. Now, you
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: never tried to sing or perform for a more unruly
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: audience than a theater full of little kids, because they
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: weren't really interested in what was going on in stage.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: But you know, sometimes it would be. But it would
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: be a pianist. God could play piano. Somebody could tap dance.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: You can imagine the hooting and howling that the kids
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: gave who I was trying to tap dan play an
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: instrument of some sort. Well, of course I could sing
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: a tune, so again I ed Jordan's The Vaudevillian took
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: an interest. Now, the way I got involved in that
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: was because the reason I did was not because I
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: could sing so much, is because whoever performed. There were
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: three performers every Saturday, and I learned this the first
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: time I was there. And whoever the kids would vote
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: for the most favorite, number one, number two, number three,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: number one would get a banana split at the drug
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: store next door pharmacy and and the second one coming
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: in second would get a Sunday and the third place
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: would get a nice cone with a double dip. Well,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: that's what enticed me, so I got MoMA to take
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: me to downtown to the Elizabeth Bryant Combs Dance studio
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: where this dance instructor auditioned the kids from the various
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: high schools. And right away, because I could saying Blue Moon,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: you saw me standing alone, she put me on the
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: on the show and and I went on. I forget
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: who I was with, what the other performers were. I
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: know I was very nervous, but at I think thirteen,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: I went on and saying something and ed Jordan's had
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: hurt me in a rehearsal, and he says, now, kids,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: you may not knew what I'm talking about. I think
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: this is the next Bing Crosby. Let's welcome Pat Boone. Well,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: the kids said, you know, they give me a little
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: shouts and applause, and for some reason they seem to
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: like me singing. And I got to Banana Split while
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: I was hooked, and I went back as many times
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: on Saturdays for the next couple of years as Elizabeth
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Briant Combs would let me come and uh and sing
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: other songs. And I would stand backstage and nervous and
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: warming up, and you know, and now I was learning
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: what it was to go in front of an audience
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: of un truly kids. But but but I found that
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: if I sang well enough, they could they seem to
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: enjoy it. Now mama's bringing their kids would sometimes be
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: there at the beginning, and they heard me sing, and
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: they had invite me to sing it their ladies clubs.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: And then and then the men, some of the men
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: found out I could sing, and they I'd sing for
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: the Junior Chamber of Commerce, or the Elks Club or
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: the the men's men's meetings. And I had a pianist
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: who named Ruth Maori, who's a piano teacher. And I
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: took about two lessons and got her hooked, and then
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: I I never took any more lessons, but she she
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: could play anything in any key, so she would accompany
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: me to these meetings, and I was I became known
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: as that kid out on Lone Oak Road that knows
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: all the pop songs and has somebody to play for him.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: And by the way, he doesn't charge anything, Just feed him,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: feed him a lunch and maybe you'll show up. Well,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: I did it purely for the fun of it. Me
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: and I was happy if I got fed. But and
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Ruth same thing. We just enjoyed what we were doing.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: She enjoyed singing it performing piano for me, and I
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: enjoyed the singing and the applause. And it was just
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: it was a hobby, like you know. And then in
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: high school, the principal of the high school knew that
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: I liked to sing, and he he talked to the
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: radio station w s i X, big station in Nashville, said,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: this kid out in our school likes to sing and
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: the and uh, and he he could be a host
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: of a teen talent show with teen talent from all
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: over Nashville and all over the Middle Tennessee. They'd come
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: in and and audition for somebody, I don't know who
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: the audition for. I just showed up on Saturday morning
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: and I hosted the the Youth on Parade show on
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: the local radio station. It was a It was a
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: big station though, and it got a big audience because
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: who who high school kid's gonna listen to on the radio,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: but other high school kids and so and so, I
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: was hosting again piano players, instrumental players. I don't think
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: we had tap dancers on radio, but that's another incident
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you about in my life. But as a DJ.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: But but that show was very popular. So I got
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: used to hosting UH Youth on parade and and doing
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: commercials what we had. And Frank Bobo could he took
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: over for Ruth Maray. He could play anything in any
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: key and UH and so we had a good half
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: hour show. And I'd come down on Saturday's host that
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: and then go back and shoot some baskets and whatever
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: else I was doing. That just became part of my life.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: But I became known as that kid out on Lone
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Oak Road that knows all the singing all the songs
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: in high school. Well, that takes you up to to
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: my high school graduation when I when I became the
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: student body and president, and about a year later year
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: and a half, became engaged to my high school sweetheart,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Shirley Foley. But but all during this time when I
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: was in chapel services, because it was a Christian high school,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: leading singing in church congregation. Now, because as I say,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: we didn't have instrumental music. We needed song leaders. So
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: by the time I was in high school, I was
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: going out to country churches and saying no One Druss
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: love of Jesus, singing his mercy and his grace. I
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: didn't know what this was, but I was beating some
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: kind of time. I didn't know if it was correct time,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: but I was leading the congregation of three or four people,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: sometimes with the mic, sometimes without a cappella song leading.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: It was part of our worship services. So again, uh,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: I was getting experience that I had no idea was
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: going to come in Andy. I was going to be
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: a teacher, preacher. I thought that was sort of what
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: I was headed towards, thinking of a way I could
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: use my life and what would be useful and helpful
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: and maybe pleasing to God and the ones that were
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: influencing me. Right then, we're Christian high school teachers, and
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: I thought, and they were preachers too on Sundays in
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: many churches. So I thought, well, that's the most worthwhile
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: thing I could do with my life. I mean, being
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: a singer, a pop singer, was the farthest thing. I
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: mean I dreamed about it, how fun it would be
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: when I was milking Rosemary you know, I was thinking, boy,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: if I was on the Art of God Free show
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: like Julius Lorosa was at the time, you know, I
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: could I could do that show in the morning, I
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: could go to college in the afternoon, and I could
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: do things for worthy charities, as I knew some entertainers did,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: and boy, that would be great. I didn't voice it
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: in a prayer, but I was thinking it out loud
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: kind of during that those days. The day came when
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I replaced Julius the Rosa on the Arthur Godfrey Show,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: and it didn't take much much. It wasn't much time
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: after I was last milking the Rosemary the cow, which
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: is another story, a dizzying two or three years after
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: I married Shirley. Now most people see Nashville as a
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: country music town. Was it country music? And was it integrated? Integrated?
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Let's see that was there also popular music? What was
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: the feel for the music? Into What degree were you
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: listening to the radio and what stations? A very good
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: question because it was already known as Music City, USA.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: But that was largely country. The Grand Old Opry was
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: there and that went out over all over the country
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: on Saturday nights. The Grand Old opry and institution in
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: country music and country music for farmers. Were they were it,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: I mean they were. They were ensconced and beautiful homes
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: all over town, you know, web peers and uh and
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: all the ones you can think of had lovely homes
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: in the loveliest neighborhoods. And they were doing you know,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: shows all over town. And they were on local TV
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: though not national television, but it was mainly country, but
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: a show. A guy named Snooky Lanson was a pop
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: singer and orchestras around town in Nashville, and uh, he
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: became one of the singers on the Lucky Strike Hit
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Parade on Saturday nights on h I forget which network
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: on national television, and he and Michelle mackenzie and a
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: couple of others became regular singers on the Lucky Strike
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Hit Parade and had to sing all the current tunes
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: that were, you know, in the top ten and they
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: would yes or orchestra and dancers and they would produce
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: those songs on television and one a hometown boy, Snook
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Snooky Lanson was one of the singers. Well, of course,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: that became a big, a big show in Nashville and gradually, Uh,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: there were artists who were crossing over from country into
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: pop to some extent, and songs like Tennessee Waltz Patti Page,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: but it had been a big hit by read somebody
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: I've forgotten his name first but as a country hit.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: And then Tony Bennett recorded Your Cheating Heart, and Hank
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Williams and then Hank Williams tunes were being picked up
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: off country music and becoming pop hits in one form
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: or another. So now some of the pop artists were
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: coming to Nashville to record there. And of course we
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: had the studios, and we had to muse the technicians,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: and we had everything. And so record companies began to
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: have their satellite offices. Decca, r c A, Victor Columbia
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: all had their setups in Nashville to record country, yes,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: but also pop artists who began to come along, sometimes
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: singing country songs. That's the way it all happened, the integration.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: As you were saying, okay, I got to ask, because
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: I always used to ask my mother what was it
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: like when television arrived? Now I know because the internet arrived,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: But I have to ask you when did your family
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: get a television? Was television a big deal? Give me
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: your take on that. It was a tremendous deal. I mean,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: we had a radio and that's what most everybody listen
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: to for entertainment and news whatever. Not for news so much,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: but some news. But but the radio was it. And
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: and I listened to Fibrum McGhee and Molly, I listened
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: to Red Skelton. I remember to all these radio shows
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: and and they were even tal that shows Ted Max Amateur.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Well it was first it was the Major Bows which
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: was big on radio. Frank Sinatra was on Major Bos
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: television radio show. It was it wasn't on TV, but
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: it was on radio with a big stut, big big
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: theater audience. Frank Sinatra and the Hoboken Four and you
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: know they sang. I've got a tape of their of
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: their first introduction on the Major Bos show. And he
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: became famous before Ted Mac took over his shows, and
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Major Bos had the Frank Sinatra who was sort of
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: their spokesman, and the Hoboken Four. They danced, they danced,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: tap danced and sang on radio. Frank Sinatra and the
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Hoboken forth shine and you know it's about shining shoes
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: it was sort of could have been considered a racist song,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: but it was. It was a big, big pop song.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: They sang shine and dadad um Shine and Da Da Da.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: I can't remember all the words. But then rump rump
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: bump bump tap dancing, and he won and he went
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: over so well that the major bows was doing live
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: shows across the country, like in the summertime, and he
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: he included Frank Sinatra in the Hoboken Forth. So all
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: these things were big on radio, and I could I
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: could see Fibruy McGee's closet open and everything fall out
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: of it, and Jack Benny when he went to the
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: safe to get some money, you know, and the footsteps
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: and it was all and gun smoke on radio. You
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: you know, it was all incredible on radio. But now
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: people that we knew got TV sets, and they were
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: a little circular screens, little oval or circular screens, and
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: if you were lucky, you could go to somebody else's
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: house and see TV. And that's when I first saw
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Ed Sullivan show. Literally every dream I would be on
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: his show twelve times in the coming years. But but
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: then I was watching from a sofa and my girlfriend's
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: house she was not really a girlfriend, but she was
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: a friend who was a girl. And uh, we did
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: play spend the bottle a couple of times, some of
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: our friends at her house. But then we would stop
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: that and watch the little circular TV. So it was
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: it took a little time to do well. We didn't
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: have a TV set. I don't remember having a TV
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: set to regret, till I graduated from high school. I
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: just don't remember having a set in our home. We
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: we watched I watched it other people's houses because it
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: was a big deal. Just a big deal. So how
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: did you end up on the Arthur Godfrey Show. It's
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: a it's a it's a circuitous route. But but I
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: I have won a contest in Nashville, just a local
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: high school contest. And I had entered a number of
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: those and I didn't necessarily I didn't win. I didn't
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: win one of them. I'd come in second usually because
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: and I understood, because the judges were usually adults. The
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: kids could applaud and cheer if they wanted, but they
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: were polite and that the judges would would decide who
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: were the winners of the talent contest. And obviously a pianist,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: or a tap dancer, or a trumpet player, an accordionist,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: or somebody who obviously had to take lessons to learn something,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: and they did well deserve to win more than a
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: guy who could just walk out and sing a pop song.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, anybody could do that, but the Ted Mac.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: There was a contest at at East Nashville High and
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: I went over just to do it for fun of it. Again,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: I did all of my singing just for the fun
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: of it. So and I enjoyed the applause of the audience,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: but I didn't expect it to lead to anything. So
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: I went over expecting, maybe if I was lucky, to
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: come in second. But the first prize was a trip
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: to New York and an audition with the Ted Mac
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Amateur Hour. Well I knew this was special. I did.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: I couldn't make up my mind whether the singer a
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: ballad because I could do those well, or an up tune.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: And you know, something got people clapping. So I put
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: together a weird little medley of Oh you ain't God,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Oh we ain't got a better love money? Maybe ragged
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: and funny, but we're traveling along singing a song side
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: by side that was the up tune, but I would
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: I did a chorus of that, then segued into I
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Believe for every drop of rain that falls a flower groves.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: It was a big pop song, religious from Side by Side,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: jumpy too, I Believe, a weird medley, but I enjoyed it.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: The audience really liked it, and there was The judges
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: included a disc jockey named Hugh Cherry, who must have
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: been influential in this because he had taken a liking
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: to me singing on radio just in youth, on parade,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: those shows around town, and he thought I had could
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: have a future as a singer, but he couldn't make
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: it happen. However, he was one of the judges. Now
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: I sang my song, I thought a young girl named
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Shirley mcgoy was gonna win that night because she sang operatically,
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: she trained, She sang, you know, one of those great
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: opera songs, and I thought she's gonna win. And I
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: don't care if I come in second or third, it
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter, I told Mom and Daddy. They parked the
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: car in the in the parking lot outside the high school.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: Look after I've sung, I'll go out to the car
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: so we can get away and not get caught up
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: in all the traffic. So that's what I did. I
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: sang my Medley and then Surety mcgoy standing in the wing,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: she had already sung I can't. I went out to
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: the car and I hear somebody yelling from the back
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: door of the gym, Pat boone, where are you? Where
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: are you? I'm over here. I was by the cars.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: I was ready to go home. Get in here, you've
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: one you want what? I came running into into the
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: backstage and here Shirley mcgoy crying on the side. You know,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: she thought she was gonna win, and I did too,
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: and the crowd has gotten tired of wait wonder where
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: in the world Pat boone as he's our winner. And
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: so I went to the mic and I said, thank
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: you so much. I you know, I really appreciate this.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: But I said, you know, this first prize is a
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: trip to New York and audition with with Ted Mack.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: And I think Shirley mcgoy should do it, because I
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: think she's got a better chance of getting on the
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Ted Max Show than than I would. So and they
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: would saying no, no, no, you're our winner, you've got
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: to go. So I had to go. I mean, I
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: felt terrible about it for her sake, But but I
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: was in flown to New York and a d C three. Okay,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: had you been anywhere before? Did anybody you know about
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: a plane or anything? No, I've never been on a plane.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: I was driven to Florida and the summers, my dad
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: would drive our two to our car. After we finally
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: got a two door Chevy, which I thought was the
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: most magnificent card. It had two doors, it had a heater,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: didn't have a radio, but it had a heater and
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: two doors and a back seat so my brother and
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: I could sit and then one of the girls could sit. Now,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, we would drive the six miles whatever it
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: is from Nashville to Jacksonville every summer. And but no,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: I've never been on a plane. So I went on
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: this d C three and flew to New York to
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: put me in a seedy little hotel off Times Square,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: and uh and I went on the show. They had
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: a I didn't have music. I didn't have my own
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: sheet music or anything, but they had a little a pianist. Really,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: I think it was just piano to play for me,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: but he knew I believe. So I sang I believe
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: for every drop of rain that falls, and I could
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: really sing it with heart and enthusiasm, and I won.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: I won. The Ted mcameitur Just to be clear, this
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: is now television, not radio. It's television and radio, I think.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: But it was television for sure, and I won, and
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: I was stunned, you know, And so they flew me
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: back home. Of course, the newspapers took pictures and local
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: boy wins, but I it was summertime, and again I
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: was not when minded. I didn't think I was gonna win.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, there was some other talented people on that
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: amateur hour show and the guy singing a pop song.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, anybody can do that. So I was leading
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: singing in a gospel meeting that summer. Uh. And that
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: was out in the country Beardstown, Tennessee. They there was
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: some of the farmhouses didn't even have phones, and so
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: I was out in this farmer's house on Thursday because
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: the vote, it was the votes were cards and letters
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: that would stream in to the TV network. And by
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Thursday they they're counting all the cards and letters and
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: they determined who was the winner. Now they were trying
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: to reach me, but I was out in the country
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: and had no phones because I made no provision to
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: be reached. And the truck drove up in the in
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: the yard of this farmat's and I could hear boots
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: stomping on the porch and knocking on the screen door.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: And I'm in. They're having lunch with the preacher and
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: the family that had ad us over for lunch. There's
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: a guy named Boone in there. Yeah, he's eating us
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: out of house and home here. Why uh, there's a
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: switchboard in the in Beardstown. We got to get him over.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: Somebody from New York is trying to reach him. This
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: was the first time it The thought entered my mind.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Wait a minute, they might call me want me to
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: come back, which was true. Oscar Schoon marker from the
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: from the Ted Max Shows. Where are you? When I
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: got to the switchboard in this lady's house, Where are
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: you where? I said, I'm in Beardstown. When we got
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: to get you to New York Sun, You're our winner.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: We gotta be have you here Saturday night. Right, got
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: to get you on a plane tomorrow Friday. So I
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: had to call my friend who came up to Beardstown
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: and drove me back to Nashville. There was a photographer
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: from the Nashville, Tennessee and taken a picture of me
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: packing going back to New York. Homeboy again, going to
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: be on the Ted mcamateur ar again. And so I
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: flew back. I sang a Perry Como song, No arms
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: will ever hold you like these arms of mine Perry
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Como song, and uh, and I you know I was.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: I was nervous, but I had had experienced singing on
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: radio and on local TV and the talent shows. I mean, gosh,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: I wasn't a total newcomer. When the red light came on,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: I knew what to do. So I sang and and
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: and Ted Max Show with just piano accompaniment. But uh,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: I went home this time. I made sure I was reaching,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: and I was. I went back the third time and
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: won three times in a row. Sang an Eddie Fisher song,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: I'm behind you on your wedding day, on our wedding day,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: only he's not walking down the aisle, he's in the
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: in the audience. And and so I won three times
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: and thinking that's got to lead to something, But it didn't.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't it didn't lead to anything. I I flew
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: home from New York and uh, and it was in
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: the papers locally. And the one thing it did lead
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: to was an invitation from a guy named Bill Beasley
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: who had a little recording company, and he had me
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: come in and make a record on the rainy night
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: in the Owen Bradley studio. Two songs. One of them
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: I had written myself, a country song, the other would
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: be pop song. And neither one of them became hits,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: but they got paid, played locally. But it didn't lead
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: to anything except in in the near future, which I
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: didn't know yet, there was a guy named Randy Wood
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: at Dot Records, who had a big dependent label based
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: in Gallatin, Tennessee, outside Nashville, and he was taking all
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: this in. Well. A few months went by, surely, and
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: I married, moved to Texas, and we're expecting our first
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: baby already when I got a call from Okay, just
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: to be clear, you moved to Texas to go to college.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: To go to college, Yeah, by Texas, well, Denton, Texas,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: North Texas State had a big music school, and because
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: I was doing a lot of musical things, I thought
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: I would learn to play an instrument. You know, I
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: could play a few chords in the ukulele. Maybe I
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: should maybe take piano or take some music courses. And
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: even if I'm just going to be a preacher teacher
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: like I thought I was, I gotta do something. I'm
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: married now and I've got to know I'm I'm gonna
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: be able to make a living being a singer, ain't it.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: And so by my experience up go then so uh
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: new music school. We had dear friends we could stay
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: with in the big inning that would sort of help
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: us get settled into Denton, Texas great music school. And uh,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: and when I get the call from New York, Hey,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: you're we're having a shootout, not a shootout, but a
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: showdown with all the three time winners, which they would
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: have periodically whenever they would have enough three time winners,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: which was very rare. Not many people would win twice
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: or three times. I mean, there were such odd kinds
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: of talent. There was I think Connie Francis No and
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: Margaret was on the show as a young girl from
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Illinois and she got beat out. She sang beautifully. I've
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: got the videotape of her performance, but she got beat
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: that night by a guy who could play a classical
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: melody in a leaf in the hands, and people were
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: you know, the audience was so intrigued with this guy
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: they could play opportunes on a leaf that they they
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: didn't vote for Ann Margaret. I mean, you never knew
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: who was gonna win. But anyway, they called me and said,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: you got to come back. You're one of about three
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: time winners. So I had to leave Shirley and the
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: baby were expecting and go to New York and and
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: and be away from school for a few days. And
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: I was on that show with the three time winners,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: and uh, I don't remember what I sang that night.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: I wish I did, but it was it went well,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: I would say it did. It did go very well,
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: and and that they told me later, the people from
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: the show, that I was winning. However, something else happened
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: that I wasn't expecting. Arthur Godfrey, that's how you the question.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: He had this big daytime show on every morning on
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: on CBS, and it was he was it on on
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: TV because he also had a Monday night talent show.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: Monday nights, Arthur Godfrey's talents got shows. And then uh,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: sometimes you'd be doing specials, big specials with his people
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: from his morning show. Uh, doing things on a specials
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday nights. I mean he was Mr TV. So
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: I'm there. After I sang my song that with the
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: three time winners, I couldn't. I didn't have money to
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: fly back home till Thursday to find out if I
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: was going to be the winner. So I went over
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: to CBS on my own and just went into the
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: to the studios on on whatever the street was. I
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: learned what which avenue it was CBS, and I just
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: asked if I could meet with the producer of the
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: Godfrey Show. I would like to audition, thinking maybe I
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: could get on the god Free Show since I'd won
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: the Ted Max Show before and he was gone, he
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: had already done his daytime show. But his producer, a lady,
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: was there, and she said come on in the studio.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: And it was just a studio with an engineer and
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: no miss new music. So she said, well singing something,
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: So I sang I believe for every drop of rain
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: that falls of fly. I could have sung blue Moon,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: but no, I sang I Believe, which comes to a
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: big finish. She said, very nice can you come back
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: in three weeks. I said, no, ma'am, I'm expecting our
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: first child. I didn't mention anything about the Ted Max show.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: I should have maybe, but I said no, I'm expecting
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: our first child. So I've I've got to go home.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: She said, oh, well, then that we'll put you on tonight.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: So she put me on that night, and I had
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: to have a talent scout to represent me introduce me.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: And I called our high school principal who had a
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: sister in a who lived on Long Island, and she
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: was on the show and introduced me like we were
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: old friends, and and said I sang around Nashville and
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: and then I sang I believe for every drop of
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: rain that falls. I mean, it was my favorite song,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: which is I think not an accident. It was a
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: song of faith and I could sing it very well
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: into a big finish and I won that night the
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: Arthur Godfrey Show. There were three time, there were three
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: other two other part contestants, but I won, and so
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: I all I got for it was appearing on his
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: morning show the next four mornings Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: And then see you later, Pat, if you're ever back
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: in New York. Give us a call, and I flew
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: back to Denton, but stopped in Nashville. Nothing happened, nobody,
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: no cause, no invitations to do anything. And and I
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: and I, but I was canceled off the Ted Max
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: show because you can't win a professional show on Monday
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: and an amateur show Friday the following Saturday. So they
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: just scratched me off the show as if I had
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: never been on. And uh, and I blew it. I
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: blew that was a college scholarship which I would have won.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: It would have helped me get through my schooling with
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: a baby on the way. But I blew it by
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: being over eager. I went on audition for Arthur Godfril
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: who knew I would get on that night? But I
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: did and one but that blew the Ted mcamateur our
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: winning in the scholarship. So I'm feeling really downcast and Nashville,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: seeing my folks on the way back to Dentn' and
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: a phone rings guy named Randy Wood, who owns the
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: record company in Gallatin outside Nashville, said, have been listening.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: You're a homeboy. You can sing, said, would you like
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: to make a record? I said, well, yes, sir, I would.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: I made a couple, but you know, not much happened
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: with it. He said, well, wait, did he know you
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: from Nashville or he senior on Arthur Godfrey. Oh no,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: from Nashville. He he knew he was in the record business.
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: He I'm sure he had heard my records on on
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: Republic Records, but they had not been hits. All he
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: knew was I could sing, but there's lots of singers around.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: But when he heard me on the Arthur god For
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Show and the Ted Mcamateur Hour and saw that I
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: was winning, he said, look, you're going back and have
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: your baby, and I'll look for a song I think
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: and be a hit and i'll call you. Yes, sir, Okay.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: I went back. We had our baby, Cherry, our first child,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: and it was eight months before he called. I mean
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: eight months. I thought he'd forgotten all about me. And
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: I was leading singing and acapella and leading singing in
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: a little country church out and and also preaching in
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: the little country church because I was going to be
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: a preacher in Sliddale, Texas. But when the phone call
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: came from Randy Wood, it would saying I've got a
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: song I think you could make a hit with, and
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: I'll send you the ticket you come to Chicago. And
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: we recorded a song called two Hearts, two Kisses Make
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: One Love. And I said, well, that sounds like a
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Perry Como song, maybe the two Hearts two Kisses or
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: something like that. No, No, one hearts not enough, baby be.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: He plays the original Charms record on the phone rhythm
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: and blues. It was called race music, and and I
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: hadn't sung anything like that, but listen, He's given me
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: a chance to make a record. So he flew me
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: to Chicago. I stayed in the hotel room all afternoon
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: and evening till that night when we recorded two Hearts,
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: two Kisses, and it instantly overnight became a million seller.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: I say overnight that we learned the next day after
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: I recorded that song, covering R and B songs were
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: starting to happen. Other artists. Frank Sinatra recorded that same song.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: DRIs Day recorded two Hearts, two Kisses. The the Castro
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: Sisters and the Lancers groups all recorded that same song.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: So Randy would put me on planes for eighteen days.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: I went to twenty cities in eighteen days at his expense,
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: went to radio stations, TV stations. It was starting to
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: do dance party shows, um to see the buyers, the
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: jukebox operators. I mean, it was an incredibly taxing eighteen days.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: And I thought, boy, if this is the record business,
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: this is not for me. Calling home to see how
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: Shirley and our little baby were doing. And and uh,
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: I thought, this, if this is the record business, I mean,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: this is not for me. But the record became a
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: million seller, and you know, it was a top ten
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: million seller. I went back to Denton. Now all of
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: a sudden, I'm a big cheese around campus, you know,
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: at North Texas State. I'm starting to go back to
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: my my TV shows I was doing on the w
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: B A P. But but now I was getting calls
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: to come perform. And Randy called me in March, not yeah,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: March of that March was too harsh to kisses. Then
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: May of that same or he caused me to come
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: back to Chicago and record. Ain't that a shame? Past
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: Dominoes big number one R and B hit which became
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: a million seller, number one hit for me. And then
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: and then October of that same year, a million selling
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: hit with a song called Crazy Obama coma knocking knocking
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: at my front door, door door, and all of a sudden,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: everything I was doing it was a million seller. I
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: had to move to New York eventually to New Jersey.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: We were expecting our second child already, and I mean emminently,
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: because it had been just a little over a year.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: And uh. And so we moved first to New York
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: and then to New Jersey, where the next two kids,
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: well one was born in New York and the other
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: two in New Jersey before we moved to California. But
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: the career, which I had not anticipated at all, just
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: took off. And for a record, I hold in the
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: record business, Bob, Is that for from fifty not from
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: fifty seven, I'm sorry, through fifty nine. I was never
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: off the singles chart in Billboard for two d and
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: twenty weeks consecutively. It's a record I hold. Elton John
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: came the closest with a hundred fifty seven weeks, but
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: I lived on the charts for over four years after that,
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: went back to school, graduating from Columba University with four kids.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: But it all took off like crazy. All of this
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: and response to your question about Arthur Godfrey. So you know,
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: this is the fifties and the music business. Are you
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: making any money? Yes, because hey, I wasn't making any
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: money from records yet, because I was on the lowest
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: royalty level for several years. Randy was only given me
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: three percent per records. But instantly I was being asked
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: to be on everybody else's TV shows. And then I
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: was making my own performances, asked to come perform in
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: supper clubs and and and shows that people were putting on.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: I was getting paid to perform. Yes, And uh, and
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: so I will let's see that was this was that
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: that was fifty nine into the sixties. Yes, I was
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: being paid to come do shows sometimes with other performers.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: But but I was making money, and uh, you know,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: I I'd have to think back as to how I
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: was until I started on TV on seven forgetting TV
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: for a second. Why do you think the hits dried up? Well,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: they didn't. Well, I mean you had this string, yeah,
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: and then you were an artist. Then the Beatles came long. Yeah,
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: you're jumping ahead a few years because I lived on
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: the charts for four years, for two hundred twenty weeks. Uh,
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: And and I was I matched Elvis during that period,
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: uh in in fifties, seven, eight and nine, uh a
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: record for record. I had forty one chart records in
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: the in the fifties and UH sixteen chart records in
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: the sixties. Right up to the Beatles. I mean I was.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: I just lived on the charts. Everything I recorded hit
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: the charts, and and I mean I did things like
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: record the first million selling Him album in the fifties,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: right in the middle of rock and roll. It's sold
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: a million copies, over a million church songs that I've
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: been singing all my life, because I knew the kids
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: would buy anything at that point that I recorded, And
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: so I recorded a Him album, and sure enough it's
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: so well over a million copies, which you know, sort
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: of fulfilled part of my early ambition to be a
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: eat your preacher. I mean that really all along the
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: way my early ambitions were answered and in manifold ways.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: But but I was now appearing in uh in school functions.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: I would be asked to appear at the youth rallies
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: and things like this and and telethons, and you know,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: wherever I went and whatever I did, I was always
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: trying to to set what I hoped was a good example. Well,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: in fact, while I was in college, when I was
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: making my first movie in fifty seven, and I was
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: still making record after record, hit after hit, because I
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: recorded April Love and Bernadine and my movie songs in
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: fifty seven and I started my own television show. Okay, okay,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: a little bit slower. Let's go back to those first hips.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: History was written years later that these tracks were originally
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: black music, as you said, reached music, and you made
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: the white versions. They're blowback in that starting in the
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: lead sixties. What was it like living in that era?
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: And two, as a deeply religious man, how did you
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: feel about singing rock and roll? Well, I I called
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: myself Elvis, and I'm midwives at the birth of rock
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: and roll because there was no quote rock and roll.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: That phrase in the mid fifties was you was a
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: race music phrase. And that's what they call R and
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: B was race music, all black performers and rock and roll.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: This rock and roll all night long, baby, I mean,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: it was not dancing. But when Bill Haley and the
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: Comments recorded Rock around the Clock, and I've just recently
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: learned that when I met Elvis that first, that first
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: night in uh in nineteen fifty six, in October fifty six, Yeah,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: October fifty six, when he was unknown, and he was
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: the opening act on this sock cop and I was
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: the headliner because I was having hit records. I've had
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: three hit records, um already million sellers. And he was unknown,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: but Bill Randall, the DJ, brought him up from Shreport
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: where he was known as a rockabilly appearing on the
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: Louisiana Hay Ride, and Bill wanted to see what he
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: was like. So anyway, that same night, I had forgotten
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: till till a few nights ago, because I left after
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: I did my part that night, lip sinking my three
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: records to the screams of the kids. Uh that. The
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: two acts that followed me were Bill Haley and the
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: Comments doing their new record of Rock around the Clock
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: and the Four Lads doing a song called Memory. Um,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: this will have these moments to remember. We'll have these
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: moments to remember. But they were unknown. They were just
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: coming along right me, just becoming known that night. And
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: so that was in In in the fall October of
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: fifty seven. But by then I was I was making
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: money and I was recording these r and B songs. Now,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: see what you have to know If you didn't live
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: through that time, and many of the critics who came
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: along later didn't, They didn't realize that race music R
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: and B had their own shows, their own artists, their
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: own radio stations, their own charts. It was a separate genre.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: But gradually in the in the mid fifties, UH pop
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: record producers began to hear some of these hooky fun
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: songs recorded by some of these R and B artists
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: and do pop versions of them, and they were calling
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: it rock and roll. There was no rock and roll.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: In fact, there was hardly a teen market until the
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: mid fifties because kids just they liked whatever their parents like,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: what they've been exposed to. But now this music was
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: and long, and their parents weren't sure they liked it,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: which made the kids like it more. And uh and
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: these songs that I recorded because I was acceptable to
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: the parents as a clean cut white guy from Nashville,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: and I was singing uh eventually two D Fruity and
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: and uh long Tall Sally, and Ain't that a shame?
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: And and crazy little Mama come knocking knocking at my
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: front door door door, Well, I was somehow making it acceptable.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: And the artists knew that because I've got tapes audio
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: tapes with Little Richard and Fats and some of the
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: performers who were being asked by black DJ's early in
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: their careers, how did you feel when Pat Boone did
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: your songs? Little Richard? I've got a tape of him
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: saying when he when I heard Pat Boone had done
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: my song too, d fruity, I was still washing dishes
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: in a bus station and making Georgia. I wasn't making
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: no money yet they would play and my record on
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: the radio, but I wasn't get me making no money.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: But when bat Boone did my song, I threw the
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: towel down and I walked out of here because I
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: was gonna make some money now, I mean, that's a
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: little Richard. At the time, Fats Domino had written, Ain't
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: that a shame? And he had He sold a hundred
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: fifty thousand when he was number one R and B
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: in their charts and in that genre. But when I
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: recorded his song, my version, which was more rock, his
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: was more roll. His was you me boom boom, me
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: cry boom boom When you said bomp, mine was you
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: made bump, bump me cry. Mine was a rock sound.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: His was a roll sound. We put them together and
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: it was rock and roll, but he said many times.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: In fact, there was a time I went to see
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: him in Louisiana, New Orleans, at al Hurts Place where
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: he was performing. He didn't talk much, but he he
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: had me come. It was theater in the round kind
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: of thing, and he and his little band, Fats, was
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: at the piano. He asked me to come down and
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: sit with him on the piano bench, which I did.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: He didn't talk much, as I say, said, you folks
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: see this ring and on his one of his stubby fingers,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: he had this piano shaped diamond ring. This man bought
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: me this ring. With this song, you made both both
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: meet cry, and we sang Ain't That Ashamed? Together? And
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: he said many times he made more money because my
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: record of his song, which he wrote and published. Little
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: Richard didn't publish his own songs. He didn't know enough,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: didn't know what a copyright was, but Fats and his
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: people did. I sold immediately a million and a half
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: of Ain't That a Shame, which was ten times more
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: than his record had sold, and that helped him cross over,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: as they all acknowledged in very short order into into
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: the pop world that at that point they had no
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: entrance to and they weren't known even the DJ's. Most DJs,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: they were just playing pop music Patty page A Combo,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: Vic Domone, show Tunes, Tin Pan Alley. But now this
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: guy Pat Boone. In fact, Jesse Jackson said recently, when
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: I did a song of R and B classics with
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: the original performers, that's another story. But I was talking
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: to Santida Jackson on the Rainbow Coalition station and she
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: said to the about recording, Papa's got a brand new
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: bag with James Brown, And she says, uh, is that
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: who I think it is? On the phone. Yeah, put
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: him on and it was her dad, Jesse Jackson, and
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: he said, you know, I've never said this publicly before,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: but he said, we we came to love Pat Boone
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: in in the Chicago partly because if his father and
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: are read fully the big country star who he used
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: to sing our hymns and our gospel songs piece in
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: the valley close to walk with the then Pat Boone
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: came along his son and Are and he was singing
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: our our rhythm and blues songs and not just singing
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: them and having big records, but bringing the original artists
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: on TV with him. And he says, you're making it
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: popular and acceptable to all this big white audience. And
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: he said, I I'm gonna say that I think Pat
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: Boone did more for race relations in the fifties than
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: any other singer. Now that's coming from Jesse Jackson. Let's
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: go back to the fifties. Seems like you met everybody.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: What were they like? They were wonderful people. I mean,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: that's see. I grew up, as I told you, in Nashville,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: and I worked alongside with my dad's company in the summertimes.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: I was a laborer and he had some other high
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: school kids, black kids also working for him. And together
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: we were we were pushing wheel bears for a cement,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: we were pouring concrete, digging ditches, a total lumber with
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: our shirts off in the hot summertime. And and we
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: were friends. I mean we were buddies. Uh. And the
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: black guys, we were just laborers together, earning a dollar
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: quarter an hour. And and maybe some of them folks,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: they might have had a car. We didn't. My dad
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: had to pick up truck. But uh, but so now,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: when I started recording and I met Little Richard, and
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: I met Fats, and I met and then I had
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: them come on TV with me. They came on as
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: my fellow performers that they in fact, we had a
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: symbiotic relationship, of course, because their music was good for me.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: I was good for their music and for their for
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: their careers because they did not they were not known
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: or accepted on pop radio until I, Elvis, and a
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: few others began to record their songs, and then DJ's
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: like Alan Freed at W I and S in New York.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: He'd started asking his listeners which record do you want
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: to play? You want to play Fats original or Pat
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: Boone's cover record. In the beginning, they chose my record
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: of Ain't that a Shame? Over Fats Original? But after that,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: after maybe a few months out, I mean, he and
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: the other DJs around the country were starting to play
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: the originals, which the kids liked, but they had to
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: be introduced to it first, and that always bothered me.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: When I think Billy Joel when he accepted his uh
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: is it Billy Joel? Yeah? I think it was when
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: he accepted his entrance into the rock and Roll Hall
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: of Fame. And I never thought of Billy Joel as
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: rock and roll anyway. He was sophisticated pop and big band,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: and sure some of his students had great beats, and
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: he did something that pure rock and roll, I guess,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: But he says, you know, I became fans of this
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: music um back when it was and he's talked about
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: the original performers, back before Pat Boone and Frankie Avalon
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: or somebody did their versions. I liked the originals, but
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: I wanted to say, what so did I? Man? You know,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: I recorded their songs back then before you did, and
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: helped them and their careers. But but it's really strange. Um.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: I just was never accepted by the rock and roll
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: crowd and Yon Winner and those who select those who
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: should be in the rock and roll Hall of Fame.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: Though I had many hits that were purely rock and
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: roll and rhythm and blues, but I also committed the
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: cardinal sins of recording gospel and pop movie themes and
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: big band swing and all kinds of other music, and
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: therefore I was disqualified in their mind as a rock
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: and roller. Well, certainly the rock and Roll Hall of
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: Famous is so Robin holl I agree with you. But
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: going back a chapter, what was Elvis like? Did you
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: know Jerry Lee? Did you know Carl Perkins? Yes, all
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: of them? Yeah. I In fact, you may know of
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: the Broadway show that was something what was it called
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: the Something for when uh, when we we had all
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: become very popular, we're very successful, when Sam Phillips brought
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: Jerry Lee, Elvis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash back in
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: a million dollar, million dollar quartet and in that I
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: think it was originally in the script. I don't know
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: if it wound up in the Broadway show because I
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: never got to see it, but I've got the tape
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: of it when Elvis they're they're all singing their songs
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: and reminiscing, and for two or three hours, Elvis says, hey,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: you guys heard Boone's new record. And they said, no,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: it is as good song man. But they sent it
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: to me into the writer, send it to me, and
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: Pat Boone at the same time. He got it first,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: and he he's got a big hit with it called
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: Don't Forbid Me, And they said, what's it sound like?
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: And he starts strumming on his guitar and singing it
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: the way he'd done. He would have done it, and
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: I already had a million selling hit with it, and
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: I tell my audiences when if I tell him this story,
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: I said, I sure, I'm glad I got it first
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: because Elvis would have had a big hit with it.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: But I at at first. But yeah, jaredy Lewis and
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: I were the first guests when when Dick Clark went
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: national with the American Bandstand. I knew Dick, but when
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: he was the the off camera announcer for Bob Horne
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: in Philadelphia, when Bob was hosting a show called Bandstand,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: it wasn't American Bandstand, just called Bandstand Bob Horne. He
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: was an late middle aged guy, but the teams were
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: dancing and he was playing all the records and the
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: and many of us, like I I came in was
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: as a guest lip syncing my record on his bandstand show.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: I did that for many. So the off camera announcer
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: was a guy named Dick Clark, and he would just
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: be the ones in nowaadies, and never here's Bob Horne
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: with Bandstand, Let's dance kids or whatever. So my promotion
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: guy with me, said, Dick is a local DJ. Why
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: don't you go talk to him a little bit because
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: he'll play your records. So I went back and talked
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: with Dick when he when neither of us was on camera,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: and he appreciated the fact. And then I went to
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: him to his radio station and was on with him
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: while I was there in Philadelphia. So later when he
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: went national, because Bob Horne, this is news, I'm not
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: talking out of school. He was forced to leave the
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: show because of allegations of shenanigans with some of the
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: girl dancers, and so boom, he was out, and Dick
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: Clark took over the show, and then ABC brought it
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: to New York and on the first American band Stand.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: His first guests were me and Jerry Lee Lewis, and
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: then Jerry Lee and I were on some other shows
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: together along the way, and I knew his cousins Jimmy
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: Swagger and there's another one Jimmy Swagger, oh and Mickey Gilly.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: They were all cousins of his, and uh and and
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: he yet of course he was doing extremely well. We
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: had totally different lifestyles, but but but I eventually recorded
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: some of his songs too, but they were just we
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: were all just newcomers. We were up and comers. We
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: were all you know, I was it, which came as
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: a big surprise to me, But for all of us,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: we're looking at shoving for our place in the sun
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: and in the spotlight. But by the time I was
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: on with Dick Clark, I was already doing my own
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: network show, which was sometimes number one in the ratings
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: of Pat Boon Chevy Show. Okay, let's stop for a second.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: How did you get that show? What was the experience
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: of doing that show, the Pat Boon Chevy Show. Well, um,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: it was simply because of the record success. I mean
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: I was having one hit record after another. Now, I
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: was still in school, in college because we moved Shirley
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: not to te Neck, New Jersey, and we had our
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: fourth child, third and third and fourth child children in
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: uh oh gosh in in New Jersey. I should know
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: Dr Leonard Brown. I remember his name, but I can't Hackensack.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: I guess it was Hackensack Hospital. And I was in
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: school at Columbia University, on my way hopefully to get
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: a five bit of capital because I knew I had
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: a very high I q and I couldn't settle for
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: less than a so I would want to get if
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: I be at a Kappa Key, that would be my
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: goal in college, and then I would apply for a
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: teaching job. I'd be teaching English in some school somewhere.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't expect for this record career to
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: keep going. I mean I'd already seen some other artists
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: who had had a hit record or two, and now
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: they were singing behind the bar somewhere that I would
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: have dinner, and I thought, well, that's not gonna be me.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is gonna fizzle out. I'm gonna get
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: my college degree. I'm gonna graduate magna cum laude, which
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: I did and so um. But while all that was
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: still going on, my records caused twenty century Fox to
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: call and ask if I'd like to make a movie,
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: and what I come out and do a screen test. Okay,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: at this point in time, you have the record, lad,
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: you're still with dot Yeah, do you have a manager
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: and agent? How do you get those? And how do
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: you find those? That was another piece of very good fortune.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: I don't think it was coincidental. My manager was a
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: publisher New Publishing, a friend of Perry Como, but he
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: had become a manager sort of on the side two
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: artists who are who are who? Sang with Perry Como,
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: the Fontaine Sisters and a couple of others, And because
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: of that he met Randy Would because they were on
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: Dot records. So when Randy Wood knew I needed a manager,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: he said to Jack Spina, why did you manage Pat?
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: So he managed the Hilltoppers, a quartet, He managed the
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: Fontaine Sisters, He managed uh Johnny Maddox, a ragtime piano player,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: and now he managed Pat Boone. And he got me
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: with g a C. General Artist Corporation, which was the
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: biggest UH management talent management in the business. And a
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: guy named Tom Rockwell was the head of that company,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: and he and his top echelon people took a very
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: big interest in me. I don't know why. I mean
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: there were other performers, but they saw things happening in
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: my life. I mean I was having hit record after
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: hit record. I was I had to hit television show
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: and so, and in fact, I think they helped me
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: get the television show. And now twenty century Fox wants
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: me to make movies. So I went to New York well,
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: what came first the movies of the TV show, the
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: TV So tell me how you got the TV show. Well,
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: it just it came about because ABC Network through g
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: a C. They just said, hey, the guy hosted radio
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: shows in Nashville. He was doing TV hosting shows in
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: Fort Worth while he was in college on w b
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: a P Television, The Country Music Show on Friday nights,
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: The Beauty Barn Dance, and these four most teen times
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: another talent show sponsored by Foremost Dairies, for which they
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: paid me the handsome sum of fifty dollars a week.
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: And uh, but I was getting a lot of professional experience.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: So ABC said, well, the g A C. You know,
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: he should be on television like Perry Como and Eddie
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: Fisher they had fifteen minutes shows. I don't know if
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: you remember that. Some of these singers had fifteen minutes shows.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: Perry went soon to Our on NBC, Eddie Fisher still
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: had his fifteen minutes show. And so they said, why
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: did you let Pat Boone do a half hour show?
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: Try it out? And so they did. They said, we'll
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: try it, and they promoted it. And while they were
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: promoting in ninety seven, I was in Hollywood making my
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: first movie because I got signed to do the TV
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: show but before it started. Uh and and I had
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: already left my own show because of another story I'll
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: tell you about when they wouldn't let me have Harry
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: Belafonti on. I quit doing the half hour show and
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: I was going to move to California, so I so
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: I went out and did a screen test. They liked
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: what they saw. They put me in a movie called Bernadine.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: After that April Love. And now I'll go back to
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: New York and I'm still hosting my TV shows. I'm
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: still in college at Columbia University, and I graduated from
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: from Columbia Magna Cum Laudy. I was on the cover
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: of TV Guide because of my TV show and my
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: cap and gown. And you open it up and there's
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: the pictures of my wife, Shirley and four little girls
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: at twenty three. We were both twenty three. All of
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: this happened, Bob At while I'm not. I'm not I'm
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: not twenty four years old yet I'm twenty three. All
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: of this had happened, and I'm making movies and there
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: and their hit movies, and before a little bit before
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: Elvis did Love Me Tender. I think was just for movie.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: I think it was and now and then eventually, pretty
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: quickly we wound up sharing. Uh. Well he was, we were,
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: we had dressing rooms at twenty century five. We were
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: making movies there at the same time. I think he
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: had a five year deal. I had a seven year
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: deal to make movies. And Bernadine was a big hit.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: Johnny Mercer wrote the title tune and a lot of
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: the other songs, and April Love Paul Francis Webster, Sammy
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: Faine Academy Award winners writing my songs for April Love,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: and on and on it went, and uh, and then
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: I did Friendly Persuasion, Dmitri Tiomkin, the Academy Award writer
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: doing the I got to do the theme song for
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: that movie. I mean, it was all It was a
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: flood of stuff happening, and I was somehow I got
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: to where I I could thrive, I mean really thrive
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: on five six hours sleep. I was very energetic because
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: it was pure excitement, I mean. And Shirley, with our
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: four little girls, was being the mother of all time,
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: taking kids, making sure we had had a family to
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: come home to, and four daughters, and I tell you
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: I've hardly ever slowed down since then. I'm still balancing
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: six or eight balls at one time or plate spinning.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: Tell me to hear Harry Billa Fonte story. Well, I
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: was doing the half hour show, and of course having
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: all these artists on with me. It was unbelievable to me,
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: but I was in the middle of it. But I
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: was the youngest guy ever to have his own music
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: variety show. I mean I was twenty I think, or
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: barely twenty two, and in fifty seven when we went
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: on the air with me hosting the The Pat Boon
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: Chevy Show uh AT sponsored by chev Lay of course,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: so instantly I was having big name guests Ella Fitzgerald,
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: Nat King, Cole Perry Como himself, Eddie Fisher, Um Tony Bennett,
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: Sammy Davis. I'd bring some of the rocket. I didn't
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: have much to do with except requesting some of the
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: other artists. But you know they were Gina Lolo, bridget Anna,
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: Maria Alberghetti, all these female stars and then boxers, heavyweight
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: boxers and people from other walks of life come on
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: my show and I'm We're doing sketches. People don't pay
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: a little. They don't know that. One of my apprentice
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: writers was a fellow that was doing stand up in
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: Greenwich Village named Woody Allen. He was he was an
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: apprentice writer on my show, hired by a guy who
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: went on to produce Mash Larry Gilbert. They were producing
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: the Pat Boon Show, The Chevy Show, half hour music show.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, I was. I was living an incredible life.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: And it was mainly because of general artists, the big
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: Talent Agency. They saw somebody they thought could handle these
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: things at such an early age, and it just happened,
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: and and I could. I rose to the occasion every time,
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: whether it was the movies, recording, television, and I'm still
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: trying to make straight a's at at Columbia University. So
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: now while I'm doing back to your question, having all
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: the black artists on my show, and they were, you know,
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: I had with Johnny Mathis my arm around him and
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: and we did a number where the choreographer we would
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: we were seeing closing a show with let there be
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: Peace on Earth, Let it Begin with Me. And the
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: stage was dark except for a bright light at the
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: back of the stage and a ladder lit in the
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: fourth ground and set and Johnny and I are going
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: to sing this song together, and somehow the courier are
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: or staged me a step or two above Johnny. I
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: didn't like that. I thought there was like maybe an
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: intention in it, and so I didn't say anything. I
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: knew the lighting would permit it. So when we did
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: the show live, I didn't get up on those stairs.
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: I just stood right there with Johnny and we sang
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: our portions together of letter V Peace on Earth. And
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: as we turned, and as it was scheduled and choreographed,
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: we turned said good night, folks, and we walked away
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: toward that bright light at the back of the stage.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: Let the repeace on Earth. Let it begin with me.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: And I draped my arm over Johnny's shoulder as we
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: as we walked like in silhouettes all the way to
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: the and that that was the end of the show.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: And so I get a call from Harry Belafanti, who
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: was the the biggest entertainer in the world right then,
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: and of course I was a big fan, and he said,
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: you know, I've been watching your show. I like the
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: way you treat your guests. He said, would you like
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: me to come on and we can do some things together.
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: I said, what WHOA? And I said, sure, can can
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: in effect? Can my folks get in touch with your folks?
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: And and he said sure. I said, well, let's just
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: plan it. We'll do it. So I was absolutely out
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: of my mind with delight. You know, Harry Belafanti, I mean,
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: Ella Fitzgerald, come on, Nat King Cole, all the others
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: were so great, and I felt so honored, privileged to
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: sing with him. Now, Harry Belafanti is gonna come on,
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: and I go have a meeting. The production meeting dropped
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: the bomb on him that Harry Belafanti has called me.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: It's the Chevy representatives, it's the the network ABC people
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: and the ad agency and they're looking at it with
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: stony faces when I tell them Harry Belafanti is gonna
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: come on this show. And they said, no, no, no,
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: we're gonna thank him. It's nice of him, but we
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: got to say, no, what are you talking about? They said,
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: you know, Chevy dealers in the South. This is late fifties,
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: now remember fifty said Chevy dealers are getting a lot
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: of flak because you're having so many, uh, black performers
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: on the shows. With you and singing with them and
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: so on, and we're Harry Belafanti is making a lot
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: of civil rights noise, and we just can't have him
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: on the show with you because that could be the
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: coup de gras for Chevrolet. And they were nodding their heads, yeah,
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: we we can't have Harry Belafanti, and I I was
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: so stunned. It took me a few minutes and I
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: and it went onto something else, and I came back
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: and said, guys, wait a minute, Wait a minute, Wait
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: a minute. It says it's the Pat Boone Chevy Show,
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: But if Pat Boone has to say no to Harry Belafante,
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: it's not the Bat Boon Show. So I'm gonna have
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: to ask you to get somebody else to take the
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: show for the rest of this season. And I'm not
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: gonna come back if I have to parts who I
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: have on my show according to that kind of stuff.
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: They said, are you gonna walk off your show? Because
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: I said, it's not just that I grew up. I
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: was born in Florida, I was I was raised in Nashville.
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: I'm a son of the South. I know all of
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: this stuff. I'm just not going to perpetuate it, and
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: UH and and so they calmed down and they said, well,
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: if you have Harry on, can you guarantee there will
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: be no subtle or any other kind of civil rights
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: statements made. I said, look, Harry Belafani and Pat Boone
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: singing together on my show is enough statement. I'm sure
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: he'll understand. I can even tell him that this that
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: it's causing trouble in the South. So they reluctantly agreed.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: And I'd like to say it happened, but it was
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: about I only had about three or four shows left
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: in that season. It didn't work out for his schedule.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: He was booked, we had other guests booked, and I
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: just dropped the show after that. Recently, I was with UH.
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: I was going in the gym at night and the
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: black guy came to get an escalade out in front
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: and I was seing it and a voice came from
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: the car pad. Is that Pat Boone? I said, yes,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: Jamie Fox hopped out there of the escalate. He says,
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, we hadn't met. He says, I'm Jamie
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: Fox said I know, and he said, Uh, I got
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: to ask you something I've heard recently, and this was
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: what thirty five years later or something. I never talked
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: about it. How it got out, I don't know, But
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: he said, I heard that when you were doing your
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: show in the late fifties and Harry Belafanti I wanted
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: to come on your show and Chevrolet, your sponsor, wouldn't
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: let him come on. You walked off your own show.
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: And I said, yes, But how did you know that?
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: I've never talked about. He said, I found out. He says,
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: can I give you a hug? He says, he says,
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: to do that now was no big deal. But you
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: this was in the late I said, yeah, it's nineteen
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: to do that back then and walk off your own
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: show man. He said that took guts, and and for me,
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: it wasn't taking guts. It was, as I've said many times,
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: it was it was just not right for me to
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: say no to Harry Belafanti. I mean, what, what guy
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: in his right mind, and I'm thinking righteous mind could
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: could say make up some excuse to Harry Belafanti. I've
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: since told his daughter, Sherry, and she had to get
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: on the phone and talked to his wife. I haven't
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: talked to Harry about it because maybe to this day,
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: he's upset. I never called him back. I don't know
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: if he knows why I didn't, but except our people
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: did converse and he was booked and I never I
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: quit doing the show. Okay, you're a mega successful being
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: that successful, also going on the road, being in movies.
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: They are all these perks, both good and bad. You know,
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: as people say, well, I'm poor, I have to pay
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: for everything when I'm rich, or to pay for anything.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: And there's drugs and there's women. What was your experience
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: in that? Will you? You know? How did you avoid
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: the pitfalls? What was your experience of the good things?
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: Very good question and of course very simple answer people.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: Some people may consider it simplistic. But first of all,
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: I believe in God, and I had a moral compass
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: that I inherited when I was thirteen. Although I got
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: a good, very good examples from my mom and dad.
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: But when I became a believer in in the Lord
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: uh it, it had an effect on me as a
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: teenager growing up. I never learned to cuss, for one thing.
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: There have been times when I wished I had learned.
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: But on the tennis court, and people know this, whenever
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: I had need an expletive, I say, oh boon, and
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: I can make my own name sound like an expletive,
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: although it's actually people don't know this. Daniel Boone was
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: not I am descended direct descendant from Daniel Boone from
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: his son James, and and he was not educated except
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: self educated. And when he carved on a tree, which
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: is well known matter in history that somebody came across
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: a tree in the wilderness, d Boone killed a bar
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: and I think he put the date of it carved
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: it in the bark of this tree. D Boone was
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: spelled b o O N killed c I L D
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: A bear b A r so. But that at that time,
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: because he came his family came from Scotland and uh
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: and the Boone had no E on the end of it.
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: It was b o n And that's an Anglo Saxon
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: word for blessing. And I grew up knowing way back
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: that I've been given a high i Q and a
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: name that that said that spelled blessing. And I just
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: felt an urging, sort of almost a calling, an innate
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: thing that if I had an influence on kids, it
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: was going to be a good influence because I had
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: planned to be a teacher anyway, and I would have
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: been teaching kids to try to live moral lives, and
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: and so all of this was feeding into the decisions
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: I made. I never took drugs of any kind, never
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: smoke pot nothing. In fact, I'm proud to say my
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: four daughters growing up in Beverly Hills and all their
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: friends smoke pot. They told me that they never did either.
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: My four daughters never want not one of them ever
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: had a her own apartment either. She married at in
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: their early twenties. Debbie Boone had a huge career with
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: You Light Up My Life, but she lived at home.
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: And and I had told my my four daughters that
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: I can pay for your college educations to any Christian
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: that college that will admit you as long as you
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: can be home for dinner, because you're not going to
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: go away to some school at seventeen eighteen years old
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: where you there's no chaperones and have boy and girl
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: dorms and all that stuff. It's not gonna happen. So
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: I I was that protective as a father, and I
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: had that same attitude in my roles that I chose.
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: I turned down Marilyn Monroe for a film. I risked
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: suspension at twenty century Fox over movie roles that they
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: wanted me to do that I just felt I couldn't do.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: And there was the time I didn't kiss Shirley Jones
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: in April Love because it wasn't in the script and
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: I hadn't had time, hadn't taken time to ask my
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: wife Shirley if it was gonna matter that I was
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: doing kissing scenes, and she was ahead of me. She well,
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: I turned down the kissing scene with Shirley Jones in
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: the movie April Love that first time, and uh, and
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: I would have done it later because Shirley gave my
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: Shirley gave me permission. She said, look, I'm ahead of
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: you if you're going to do movies. She was familiar
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: with the entertainment business. Her her dad read fully, and
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: she said, you're gonna do kissing scenes, Just make me
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: one promise. I said anything. She said, you won't enjoy it,
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: and so I promised her I wouldn't enjoy it. I
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: came back to the studio ready to kiss Shirley Jones
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: later in the film, but it hit the trade papers. Bob,
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you it was in Hollywood Reporter, Daily Variety.
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: It went around the world on the associated up all
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: the press services. You can look it up. A star
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: refuses to kiss leading lady and they assumed it was
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: for religious reasons, but it wasn't. It was just I
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: wanted to stay married and I wanted to know ahead
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: of time is this going to be a problem. And
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: Shirley gave me her permission. So I did love scenes
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: with Debbie Reynolds and Barbara Eden and Diane Baker and
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: and Margaret and and others, and of course I didn't
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: enjoy it. Okay, there are a couple of you know,
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: being that famous, you get experiences the average person doesn't have.
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: Tell me you're one or two best experiences as a
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: result of your need, whether it be meeting ahead of
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: state or going somewhere. You know what couple of the
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: perks of fame, well, you know, usually the people that
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: I met. You know, I I had been around enough
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: and I was intelligent enough, you know, to to try
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: to be on best behavior. My worst, my worst experience,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: most embarrassing moment of my life was with Queen Elizabeth.
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: So we'll go right to the top. I mean I
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: did to Royal command performances. You know, the whoever manages
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: those things has whatever the royal family wants to come
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: in at the generally the Palladium theater in the Royal
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: Box there the Royal family up there. And I was
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: still in college when I did my first command performance.
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: Imagine that. I mean, I'm I'm making movies, television recordings,
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: having hits since success and babies right and left, four
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: and four years and I go to London and I
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: perform in the in the Palladium and singing my rock
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: and roll songs. Well, um, I was schooled ahead of
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: time that you know what you do, you get in
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: this line. And the poor Queen and the royal family
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: have to run this gauntlet with performers and make nice
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: with people, some of which they may don't care about,
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: but they have to be nice to everybody. And and
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: the women have to curtsy and bow, and the guys
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: have to stand straight by by your head, say your
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: majesty and extend your don't extend your hand unless she
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: extends hers. I don't remember whether she and Princess Margaret
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: and the others. I think Princess Margaret extended her hand
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: that first time because she was a fan already Princess
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: Margaret so and I was singing rock and roll songs
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: that were big hits in England and uh and so that.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: But that was in fifty seven, now, several years go by.
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: I you know, it was all right, it went well,
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: and I was, you know, I could brag about having
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: it had a royal command performance when I go back,
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: and I think it was it was at a royal
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: command performance having to do with a movie. I think
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: it was West Side Story or something. So I came
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: back and I'm an old hand now I know what
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: to do, and I was sort of smugly, uh, you know,
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: laughing up my sleeve at Peter Seller's Claudia, Cardinal Peter Finch.
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: Some of these big big stars, they're also nervous. I mean,
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: who who's not nervous when you're gonna meet and you know,
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: either shake hands or be greeted by the Queen of
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: England and the royal family, Prince Philip and everybody. I'd
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: done it before, so I knew what to do and
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: I was not nervous until she comes in far at
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: the other end and I'm towards the end of the line,
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: and I see how nervous. Everybody else is, and and
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: I starting to repeating to use okay, by your head, don't,
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: don't re extend your hand, say your majesty. If she
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: extends her hand, you take it. If not, just let
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: answer whatever she says. And that's it. And so Peter
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: Seller's Claudie Carlinal Peter's bench over here waiting, and suddenly
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: she's standing in front of me, and I bowed. I said,
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: your majesty, and she said we met before? Who I said?
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: We did? My we did. I didn't mean to say that.
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: I meant to say you remember that, but it came
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: out we did we met before? How can you say
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: that to the Queen of England? When was that queeney?
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: Was it a seven eleven store somewhere? And where where
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: did we meet? I'm and and she laughed and and
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: there's a picture of me and a one of the
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: London papers with a look of shock on my face
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: and a big smile on her face. And she extended
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: her and she said it was the royal performance several
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: years ago. She was very sweet, like, oh, if you
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: don't remember, it's okay. How can I say I don't?
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: But my response to her was when she said we
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: met before we did. So, I mean, you can't top
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: that for embarrassment. Um, I mean I I at the moment,
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: I can't. I know that Dick Clark and I, Uh,
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: everybody told us that we looked alike sometimes. Uh. In fact,
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: sometimes he was mistaken for Pat Boone and I was
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: mistaken for Dick Clark. And so we we pulled alongside
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: each each other and our cars on Sunset Boulevard one time,
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: roll the windows down, and I said, anybody ever tell
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: you you look like Pat Boone? And they said, ye,
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: anybody will tell you look like Dick Clark. And and
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: I have a picture I'm looking at it right now
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: in my office of Dick and me together. And he
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: had it on his um office wall. And when he passed,
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: his wife knew I would like to have that picture,
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: and and she sent it over to me. And I'm
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: looking at him with this look on my face, like,
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: you know, we really do look alike. But but but
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: we we were not embarrassed by any of that. Maybe
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: he was embarrassed sometimes if they thought he was Pat Boone.
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: I was never embarrassed if they thought I was Dick Clark.
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: But but no, I can't think of Well, let's let's
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: go back. You're talking about England. So you're having this
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: career hit after hit, you have a TV show, you
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: have movies. What goes through your mind when the Beatles
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: hit and what was that experience? Like? Well, I first
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: heard them when I was in England performing and their
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: first record had come out. If there's anything that you want,
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: which I'm hearing on a commercial right now, So the Beatles,
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: or who have Michael Jackson, whoever owns their catalog, is
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: letting them use the Beatles songs. But I heard that
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: record and I said that's a hit, and I brought
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: it back to to l A and trying to get
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: Randy would have Dot Records to let me record it,
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: but he said no, it's already been out on another
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: label called VJ and it was not a hit, so
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: he said no, it's I don't think it's a hit record,
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: and he wouldn't let me record it. So of course
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: it did go on to become a big hit and
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: uh and the Beatles, they they came on so strong
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: that at one point, like five of the top ten
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: songs were all Beatles songs. And Tom Jones and I
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: and all the others making records had to scramble for
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: our whatever was left. And I was making a lot
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: of money in my record royalties and and and still
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: selling lots of records at that time in the sixties.
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: And so uh, I got a painter who was uh
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: who was very skilled. He had he painted a oil
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: painting of me from a picture in a magazine. But
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: he was great at skin tones, and not my skin.
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: I had a need for that, But I mean he
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: he made me look really nice in this painting. So
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: I sent him a picture surely my wife and asked
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: him to do that, and he did. And then I
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: sent him pictures of my four girls and he painted
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: them and and and I have him framed in our
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: place in Hawaii right now. And so he he in
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: contacted me said he was coming to the States. He
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: was from Indonesia, and he said, Uh, I need there's
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: a group called Church World Group that will bring me over,
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: but I need to have a sponsor. Would you be
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: willing to be my sponsor? Well, I didn't know what
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: that meant, just would you vouch for me? I said, okay, sure,
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: I'll be your sponsor. And I thought he had maybe
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: some connections I didn't know. And the next thing I know,
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: we've moved to CALIFORNI on you and I get this
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: notice from the Church World Service. We are we're sending
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: a young man named Leo Jansen. He'll be arriving in
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: New York such and such a date on a ship.
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: Where do you plan for him to live? And what
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: do you expect? Where do you expect for him to do?
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: That's what they meant by my being a sponsor. And
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: he's already on the ship coming over, and so I
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: had a representative of mine meet him at the ship
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: flying to California. He's about five ft tall, a little swarthy,
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: dark Indonesian who who could paint incredibly, And I got
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: him a job as a stock boy at DOT Records.
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: He had to help. He had to shove these huge,
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: heavy boxes full of records around on a cart. It
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: could have killed him. In fact, who knows. It may
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: have contributed to an early death, which he did experience,
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: but it was not from that and he was he was.
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: I had him paint other stars like um uh Oh,
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: Richard Chamberlain and Connie Francis, Connie Stevens, ma Harris uh
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: what's Ma Harris's first name anyway, actors, And just like me,
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: he would paint them and I would have him send
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: the pictures to them, and they'd pay him five or
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: six dollars for these portraits of them taken from pictures
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: and magazines, I mean, because they were that good. Next
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: thing I knew, I saw he was painting nudes and
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: his paintings were being displayed in the big painting stores
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: framed uh, and he would he would he didn't have
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: new models, but he would just buy magazines and he
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: would drape a towel or uh, some kind of clothing
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: over an otherwise nude model. And and and because his
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: skin tones were, as I say, so great, the Aaron
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: Brothers and other stores that sell all kinds of paintings
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: that would display them in the windows. And he was
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: beginning to make serious money. So I had him come
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: over for dinner and I said, you know, uh, Leo,
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you're making money, but you know this, I
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: don't think should be what you're remembered for. I have
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: an idea I want I'm gonna get some pictures, some
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: paintings of Jesus, and I want you to to paint
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: a beautiful, lifelike portrait of Jesus. And I believe this
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: could be the thing you'll be remembered for the rest
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: of your life, because there's millions of people that would
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: like to have your heart work, your artwork and heart
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: work for that matter. And I knew he could do it,
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: and he was. He was soon to do that. He
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: was planning to do that. He brought his mother over
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: from Holland, from the Netherlands and or did I say
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: Indonesia was the Netherlands, begin in the Indonesian component, because
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: they were in control of the Indonesia at that point.
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: And so he had he had a heart attack and
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: passed very early, and he never got that painting of
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: Jesus done. I've always regretted that because I can imagine
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: what it was going to be like, because the beautiful
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: paintings of him anyway, but none that could do what
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: Leo Jansen could have done by bringing him to life
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: as as his artistry would have done and a painting,
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: but that didn't happen. But what the world brought that up?
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: The Beatles? Oh, the Beatles, Oh yes, because that occasion
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: my meeting with the Beatles, because when they performed UH
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: the first tour UH and they were to Thomas mcreena
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: in Las Vegas. I had created pictures of the Beatles,
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: had a painter do the beautiful UH separate um solo
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: port uh pictures and then a group portrait as well,
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: and got sears. I got to go to Briant. I
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: had to go to Brian Epstein to get the contract,
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: which I did, and he he loved the pictures once
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: he saw them solo portraits. What I was trying to say,
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: They and the and the Beatles themselves loved the portraits
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: and and he so I got the contract to sell
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: them and UH and so we got sears to sell
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: them by the by the hundreds and thous is probably millions.
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: And they all had tags, numbered tags, and and the
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: buyers would put their name in address and we had
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: a huge raffle when they and we we brought thirty
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: people to the first concert, the afternoon concert at the
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: Thomas mac Areena. And I got a picture in my
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: office of my wife Shirley and our kids on the
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: front row at that at that concert of the Beatles
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: on their first tour. And then we went back after
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: that show and spent some time after the show with
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: the boys and who were just coming along at that point,
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: but already you know, creating havoc. And I remember my
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: daughter Laurie sat on ringoes lap. Debbie was talking to
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: to George Lyndy two. Who am I leaving out? Oh,
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: John Lennon, And then I was talking to Paul, and
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: Paul was saying, you know, we liked these portraits very much.
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: They flatter us. We like them, said, Brian's got our
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: their Epstein's got us on a lot of crap which
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: were embarrassed by an avenge. So we had a great
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: meeting back there. That's the only time I was ever
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: with the boys themselves. But but the pictures wound up.
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: I was in doing some shows myself in England, eventually concerts,
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: and I was in Liverpool and I went to the
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: Cavern and those pictures that we had I had done
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: are hanging at the cavern, uh where you know, honoring
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: where the guys first made their breakout moves as a group.
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: And so I would like to say that I ma
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: relationship had continued with any of them, including Paul, especially Paul,
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: because I felt like he and I were the most
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: alike of of those guys because he had he developed
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: a wonderful marriage. Of course his first wife died, but uh,
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: he had other marriages and kids, and I thought he
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: was a great father. And and I don't know about
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: George and his family or Ringo Um and John. Of
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: course he had Yoko, but I I did have and
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: I recorded some of their songs my my records if
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: I want to hold your hand, and and yesterday, and
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: some of the songs that they wrote and did were
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: so wonderful. And I had that kind of relationship with him.
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: But the one personal relationship was when we were both
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: really still in the early days of our careers. Did
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: Leo paint the pictures? Yes, Leo Jansen. Okay, just let
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: to make sure. Okay, Now you mentioned earlier that you're
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: juggling six or seven balls to this day. So how
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: you know you keep reinforcing that you really plan to
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: do this for a temporary period of time, then become
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: a teacher. Preacher, How have you sustained decade after decade,
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: another sixty years. How have you managed to do that?
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: That's good, that's another very very good question. And you know,
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: I would never have dreamed it would happen but I
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: think the logical answers are versatility diversity not the necessarily
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: same thing. Because I have recorded more songs, I never
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: quit recording, and I always had some kind of access
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: even if if I had to start the company, which
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: I did, Land and Lion Records and Pat Boone's Gold
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: Label for other artists as well as myself, because the
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: time came when many of us artists were dropped by
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: the labels that we helped build, and and so I
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: and I anger and opportunism to to impetus I UM
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: I created the Gold Label for artists who had sold
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: millions of records, who were still active and singing, and
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: we're not on any label and uh, and I got
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: a partner who who who could be the administrator? And
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: in the first two two years of that label Gold Label,
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: we signed famous artists including Glenn Campbell, Roger williams, um Gosh,
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: the Four Freshmen, and and uh, the High Lows and
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: and and I'm forgetting a lot of them we had.
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: We had so many of them on our label. They
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: had sold millions of records and we're still performing, but
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: we we had had a hit a financial bump in
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: the road. The guy that was putting up the money,
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: lost all his money, and it fell on my shoulders
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: to foot at the bill and keep it going, which
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 1: I did for a while. But I brought in people
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: who who have been recommended it's knowing how to run
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: record companies, and they didn't. They just they just took
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: my money and they didn't get anything done. And and
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: and then at the worst possible time, we had a
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: wonderful relationship with a company called Valley Media. They they
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: were the biggest inventories uh company in the nation. They
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: had huh Barney who ran it. Oh really yeah, yeah,
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: they were in northern California. They were a big distributor,
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: Valley Distributors, and you know that it went public and
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: we had a great relationship with them because they we
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: paid for the records, but they would pay for the
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: marketing and distribution, and they were good at it and
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: and also the inventor and all of that. They would
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: act like a record label and let me be the
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: record label and they would work with me. But about
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: a year after they went public, they went bankrupt and
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: and so they all of my masters, all of my
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: stuff was stuck in there bankruptcy proceedings, and I had
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: to let all the contracts and the artists that that
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: I had gotten recorded, Glenn Campbell, and and and Jack
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: Jones and all of the artists, Patti Page. I had
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: to let them all go because I couldn't follow through
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: at my own just on my own expense. What we had.
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: Our deal was we would put up fifty thousand per album,
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: and if you do your job and the arrangers do
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: their job, you can make a wonderful album, even with
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: an orchestra fifty thousand if you come to the studio
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: knowing what you're gonna do, not doing like so many
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: of the rock artists and so many others did and do. Still.
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: They booked the studio for a month, and they bring
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: their musicians together and they start fiddling around, Now what
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: do we do? And they write songs while they're running
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: up those huge bills three or four hundred thousand, And
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: we weren't gonna do that. And I said, if you
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: want to spend more than fifty, you can pay more.
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: And a couple of the artists, did you know, they
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: spent more than our fifty. But we made some very
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: good records that I'm really proud of, and they could
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: use in their personal appearances. That was part of the
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: part of the deal and what part of the reason
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: they wanted to do it. But uh, but we hit
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: the financial snags and and the Pat Boon Gold label
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: still exists. We've we've We've got a few artists still
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: hanging and well it's because they don't have anywhere else
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: to go, and we still sell their records. But I'm
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: hoping that the other things I'm doing now on my
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: own are gonna add some luster to the Gold label
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: and people will be will have the the influence to
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: come to the Pat Boon Gold label, to bat Boon's
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: bat boon dot Com and others and find out about
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: records by artists that they did love and maybe didn't
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: know that they recorded for my label. Path This has
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: been wonderful. We could go on for another couple of
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 1: hours just to hear your story is so informative. I
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: want to thank you for showing up and doing this today. Well,
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: let me just tell you a couple of things quickly, man,
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: because you mentioned the and I mentioned the balls in
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 1: the air, I'm about have already made the first episode
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: and I'm already launching my own podcast, which will be
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: happening just in a matter of weeks, and it's gonna
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: include We've got so much content that is. I think
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: it's going to be a very entertaining podcast because I
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: can play my own records, the records of the artists
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: that I will feature, like that first, that first meeting
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: with Elvis when he was my opening act. No other
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: artists can make that statement. And and uh, and and
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: our relationship that pursued after that, when we visited in
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: each other's homes, not just in each the studios. He'd
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: come over on a Sunday afternoon and and my girls
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: being the pool and they jump up and run to
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: see him, and he that's a girl. Stop it, you're
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: getting him all what? Leave me alone? Man? I like it.
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: We didn't know he had Priscilla stashed back at Graceland
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: at that time. So anyway, they are all these stories
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: to tell and pictures to show and movie clips and
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: TV clips. So that podcast and now I'm on Spotify.
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: Spotify they tell me I've got about six hundred thousand
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: listeners a month now coming to to hear just the
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: original first eighteen or twenty songs that were big hits.
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: And uh, I mean I had forty that were chart records,
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: but but sixty that were chart records, but but forty
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 1: one just in fifty five, So they can hear those
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: songs on Spotify. But I've recorded two hundred songs and
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: more than Frank Sinatra or being and I'm still recording,
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: and so we're going to see if we get all
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: those on Spotify. They're open to the idea and so
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: that people will hear album songs that I recorded, movie
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: themes the Great American Songbook that unless they bought one
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: of my albums, they don't know that I recorded the
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: same kind of songs as Frank and Byng and the
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: others that I idolized. Um. And we've got other things
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 1: happening um that are going to be noteworthy. And I've
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: just recorded one song with Crystal Gayle hit record of
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: hers that was twenty years ago with Eddie Rabbit, and
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: the record company thought it'd be cool for me to
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: do that song again with her, and she's still lovely
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: and sings great. And we do a new version of
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: Just You and I and we dedicated it to my wife, Shirley,
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 1: And when we do our video together at the end
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 1: as a picture of Shirley, that she that Gail and
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 1: I were both singing really in honor of my wife Shirley.
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: So there's there's things like this that are happening that
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: people will learn about, and I hope they'll be interested.
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: And of course I've written a book, my last book,
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: and I've recorded my last album called Legacy, which is
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: all songs. I wrote all the words and music for.
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: I made every song in it. I I wrote the
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: tunes and the words except one song. I have some
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: help from a couple of composers that have never objected,
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 1: rock mon and Off and Pac Pagnini variations on a
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: theme by by rock mon and Off bah blah blah
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah blah blah, ma bah bah blah blah,
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: bah bah blah blah blah blah, the beautiful, beautiful melody.
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: And I wrote words for that, and and we'll list
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: them as the writers of the melody. But but I
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: wrote the words. Send them the royalties. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway,
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 1: it's a busy life. A book yet to come out,
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: a movie I just did, call Mulligan. I have a
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: lead role in it. It's about golf. Meant, millions of
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: people play god. But there's not many movies about golf.
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: The Mulligan is the second chance to do over. And
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: I play a respected older golfer who's mentoring a young
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: guy who's having mental and marital problems, is ruining his
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: golf and business problems, and uh, and I to try
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: to help him, you know, I create a spiritual basis
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 1: for him to get his life in order, which will
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 1: also help his golf. And it's going to be a
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: big film. I think I can guarantee because of what
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 1: I just said millions of golfers is going to come
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: out the week after the Masters next April. Good timing.
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: And it's about golf. It's a whole golf story. And
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: I'm wearing Payne Stewart Nickers throughout. I'm a very colorful
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: character in the film. And uh, I think, I mean,
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: they tell me I did a good job in it.
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: And I've got a couple of other films that I've
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: done lead rose in that are not out yet. So
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 1: I'm busy. I'm telling you, I'm just continually still writing,
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: still singing. I'm not making live performances because of COVID.
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: But I had to cancel my last what might have
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 1: been my last performance in the Dick Clark Theater in Branson,
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 1: where I had a lot of success playing Will Rogers
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: and and and Justice in my own shows, but that
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 1: had to be canceled, maybe forever. So I don't know
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 1: if I'll do any more live performances, but if I do,
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: I sing some every week to make sure that I
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: can still do it. And I mean, I'm in my
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 1: eighth year, but I'm listen. You're an inspiration. Shall we
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: all live that long? Never mind be that productive? And
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: I still swim in my heated pool, I still work
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 1: out in the gym, still play tennis and golf and
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: and and and hold my own I mean, I I'm
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: very fortunate, always have been. But the name Boone means blessing,
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: and I've just tried to live up to it. Thank
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: you so much, Pat, It's been great. Thank you, Bob.
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: Till next time. This is Bob left Sex