Date News Posted: December 6, , 2003

Thanks to all the old friends that called during the fires we really appreciate it, a fire is about as final as it gets when it comes to house and home and all you have accumulated over the years.

When the fires started it was 107 in the shade, when they ended the mountains were covered with snow and there was rain in the low lands, those that were standing over smoldering ashes with a tear in their eye and a hurt in their heart had to feel like the rain and the snow was too little too late.

We watched TV as an old man stood beside what used to be his little home with tears in his eyes he said in those ashes is the first music box my mother gave me as just a little child and for all these years I have been collecting them, they are all in those ashes along with all of the memories.

While he was talking I was thinking about if I were in his place watching the embers blowing in the wind from all of the records and pictures and everything else we have collected over these many years, they can say what they want about a life being the most important thing in this old world but for me I would just as soon be a part of those ashes and embers along with all of my old records and pictures because they mean that much to me.

And that part about, you can replace this or that but you can never replace a life, no, you can’t replace this or that if you have had it for a lifetime, it would never be the same and I for one wouldn’t even want to try, I had rather blow away in the ashes with the remains of a Johnny Cash album tucked under my arm.
 

So many of our great Country Music artist and actors have passed away this year and for a while it seemed like it was every single day, if it is not a sad situation to see them mentioned on page 23 of the local news two weeks later I don’t know what is, some of them are never mentioned anyplace that we could ever find, if an artist or actor is not a high profile type of person then just forget about reading anything about him or her ‘cause it ain’t a gonna happen.

Who was ever a good bad guy more then Jack Elam? Jack had moved away from the Hollywood lights and into the quiet little town of Ashland, Oregon where he lived the kind of life he wanted to with his wife and friends.

Jack who they say was really 84 years old and not 86 had lied in his early days to get work, which sounds like old friend Freddie Hart who joined the Marines at the age of 14 with his parent’s signature that’s why one bio will say one thing and another one something different.

His cockeye was due to a fight as a kid in Phoenix but it never seemed to bother him ‘till the later years when a doctor told him either change lines of work or go blind (Jack was a bookkeeper and was putting to much strain on the remaining eye) so Jack did a little horse trading and became an actor.

Walter Brennan Jr. was telling us a little story one time about when his dad had a scene with Jack in a movie they were doing, Walter ask Jack, now just which eye am I suppose to look at while we are doing this scene, you wanna guess what Jack told him?
 

Music Mill Entertainment has released what they call “THE LOST ALBUM” on one of the greatest of America’s folk artist Mac Wiseman, I guess we call him a folk artist just because he sings the kind of songs folks love and understand, which is far more then we can say about some of the things we hear to day.

Anyway they call it “THE LOST ALBUM” because all but a couple of them have never been released, “Old Pair Of Shoes” is a good one as is “Heads You Win, Tails I Lose” and then there is “They’re All Goin’ Home But One”, “If I Could Live That Way” and then there is>>>If I keep this up we’ll have them all listed but take my word for it, if you are a Mac Wiseman fan this CD needs to be in your collection.

Dew to the fires and power failures our catalog might not come up when you punch it but we have it for 9.95 if you want a copy-Great Album.
 

There is a young man down in Texas by the name of Joe Paul Nichols who has just released his “20^th” album, in fact other then his name, that’s the title of the album “20”, Joe Paul is a cut and dried “Country Singer” he sings about true to life country stories like we have all heard in the good old days, Good ole Larry Scott who has been and still is, one of the few remaining Country DJs for many years who still plays what we know as country thinks Joe Paul is the cats meow.

As a matter of fact we sent one of Freddie Hart’s new albums to Poland a week or so ago and after the DJ there quit ravin’ about Freddie he started in with Joe Paul saying how great an album “20” was and he didn’t even know we knew Joe Paul Nichols.

This is another great album, and we almost forgot, one of the songs on that album “Lord When I Make It To Heaven” was written by good friends Dale Vest and Tommy Overstreet a good song and great album for your collection.
 

If you are a DJ anywhere and want a copy of anything we ever mention to play on your show, just send us a letter on your letterhead and we will forward it on to who ever the artist may be and we are pretty dang sure they would be happy to send you one.
 

Don Hinson is working on a new one, if you know Don from his days on California radio or Las Vegas radio then you probably remember him or even maybe for all the famous people he has opened shows for, like Waylon and a few other names like that.

Anyway, Hinson does a passel of voices so he has re-written a song that was first penned by two of my best friends from days gone by, Hal Southern and Eddie Dean and of course you remember Hillbilly Heaven, well for the second time now Don Hinson has re-written it and calls it Hollywood Heaven, years ago John Agar (the actor) re-wrote it and he to called it Hollywood Heaven, that song has been re-written so many times we lost count, I had a list once, but by now—who knows.

Anyway no one has ever done the song like Hinson and his many voices so we think you might get a kick out of it, it just goes to show you that a good idea will last forever.

We should have copies in about a week in case you are interested.
 

Remember some time ago we wrote an article about Rodney Dillard who was one of the Darlings on the Andy Griffith show? With the Mayberry re-union coming up the timing on this one is perfect and it is called of all things, “I Wish Life Was Like The Andy Griffith Show” (don’t we all) also done by Rodney Dillard and his crew of pickers.

If you were a Andy Griffith fan then you can’t help but to think back about any one of those shows and start to chuckle, each one a master piece of it’s own, Barney looking for his bullet, finding it, loading it, and all but, shooting off his toe, and of course Otis checking into his cell after he had a few to many.

But there is one young guy the world of Mayberry fans should be proud of and that’s Opie, little Ronnie Howard. He has gone through his life this far, (as far as I know) with out ever making a wave, he was a great little actor and now a well respected director and from what I have read about him always helps his family especially his brother who is seen in about all of Ronnie’s pictures some where.

We are not forgetting what the rest of the cast has done (those that we know) Don Knotts appeared at last years paper show (Now I know you probably already know what a paper show is but for those of you who don’t>> once a year at the Beverly Garland Hotel in Hollywood, all the old actors, cowboys side kicks and other famous people from days gone by that we all loved gather to sell their pictures, have their pictures taken with fans and just enjoy them self for just about the whole day) this past year they had to put Don Knotts in a separate section not that he was any better then the rest but the line at his table was so long other fans couldn’t get in, they were lined up all the way out the door and then some.

I can almost taste Aunt Bee’s home made apple pie:
And I do, wish Life Was Like The Andy Griffith Show, you are a good man Mr. Griffith.
 

There is a nice lady in Texas that calls us every now and then, her and her husband who is now in an assisted living home (her husband is, not her) were Eddie Dean fans and still are, she keeps the western’s channel on in his room 24 hours a day and when I sent her a picture signed by Eddie for him she framed it and hung it in his room and she said he cried when he saw it.

Then one day in the mail we received a package and when we opened it there was two horse shoes her son had welded together with a little head welded on top and a little guitar cut out of steel and they called it Eddie Dean, it was made on purpose a little off center so when we have an earth quake in southern California good ole Eddie rocks a little, Eddie rocks about all the time cause we hardly ever stop shakin’, Eddie would have got a kick outa that.
 

It didn’t take the distributors long to put together all the Don Gibson records they could find, we got most of them for our catalog but you can bet Bear Family Records will come up with some that haven’t been heard since Don Gibson wore short pants.

Even though we loved all of Don’s music the last time we saw him on the Opry, well I don’t think he should have been, he was a great singer but I am sorry to say, time had caught up with him and he was not the same Don Gibson that could do no wrong where a song was concerned.

The world of country music will miss him as they will Johnny and June Carter, Sheb Wooley, Wesley Tuttle and oh boy, the list just keeps on going, Teddy Wilburn and so many more and all the great actors that have left us this year.

And so the records show that Don Gibson was with us from April the 3^rd. 1928 ‘till November the 17^th 2003, his music will last forever.
 

For those of you that ask about Bozo Darnell, we heard from his wife just a couple of weeks ago and she is going to put us together a nice bio on Bozo which we will sure pass along.

As we have said several times, we love to hear from the families of our great artist that left us way too soon.
 

Another nice letter from Carolina Cotton’s daughter, she has some old transcripts, you know, those great big disc that were used back in the good old days for various things, one of them was to do radio shows on for AFRN (Armed Forces Radio Network) she wants to know if anyone still might have one of those machines they were played on so she can take some of the things, well all of the things I guess that her Mother had recorded for re-broadcast at other radio stations and AFRN and put them on a CD.

We only ever had one chance to buy one of those machines some years ago and we let it slip by us, and when we do that we remember what Cliffie Stone said when he made a big goof once, he filled a boot full of sand, tied it up in a tree limb, swung it way out and then bent over letting it kick him in the butt.

Well you can’t win um all I reckon.

Anyway, if you just happen to have an old transcription machine sitting in your garage we, she could sure use it right about now, or if you know of a company that does have one.
 

On the lighter side: we used to put some of the old “Home Cure All Remedies” in the news.

This remedy is “How To Remove Warts” I only had one wart in my life and that was while I was still just a kid, it was on the finger on my right hand, grandma said that’s because a frog peed on me, a few years later remembering back to what she said I always wondered what would have happened if an elephant would have peed on me.

Have no fear grandma said she knew a way to remove it, So I brought her the old straw broom, she pulled out one stem of straw and holding one end of it against my wart she cut a straw about two inches long and then she cut another one the same way, altogether she cut four straws. She handed them to me and said go bury them in the back yard and when they rot your wart will be gone, so I did.

I woke up one morning a month or so later and what-do-ye-know? No Wart. Well who knows?

I never tried this one before but this one is in the book*

To cure warts it says, Take an Irish potato and cut a piece off the end and rub it on the wart two or three times a day, cutting a slice from the potato each time you use it. It says very often one potato is sufficient.

What it doesn’t say is what to do with the slices of potato you used to rub on the wart; you might want to bury those in the next county.

Here’s another one for ye:

It says, for a sore throat there is nothing better then the white of an egg beaten stiff with all the sugar it will hold and the clear juice of a lemon.

What it doesn’t say is, eat it, hold it in your mouth, rub it on your neck, or bury it in Ft Worth.

Now here is a good one> “How To Get Thin” Take regularly three times a day in a little water, 15 drops of hydrate of potassium- (always after meals it says) and a little moderation in eating will help.

I think a little better way would be to plum stop eatin’ for say, a month.

How about this one> For a cold on the chest (mine is usually in the chest, not on it but>) it says, a flannel rag wrung out in boiling water and sprinkled with turpentine then laid on the chest gives the greatest relief.

The best part about this remedy is> if your cold gets better grandma can always light the turpentine rag on your chest and use you for a lamp.

How about another one, I like these things> For a bee or wasp sting, make a paste of common earth and water, put on the sting area at once and cover with a piece of cloth.

(Later you could remove the cloth and plant grass I guess)

Here is two of them you may need before you know it> How to cure the Hiccoughs> Drink a cup of hot tea or hot water with a little ginger or red pepper added, it says also sugar and cream may be added, or use hot milk.

(I think the red pepper added to some cream may be enough to wish you had the hiccoughs back again)

Here’s another one for the hiccoughs and much better then the one before> Take a half pint of Jack Daniels, let chill just a short time in the cooler> Stand on your head and with the J.D. in a water glass down the hatch:

(It is recommended that if you are a lady you wear jeans during this treatment, should a neighbor enter your home while you are standing on your head wearing a dress, the fright they may suffer could be overwhelming)
 

Here’s a little piece of trivia for ye:

The headline is “HOW MANY INDIAN LANGUAGES ARE THERE”?

Well at the end of the 15^th century there were more than 300 different languages spoken by American Indians in what is now the United States. Today only about 250 languages are spoken, some of which are spoken by just a few people. Others such as Cherokee, Navajo, and Teton Sioux are spoken by many thousands of people.

I always had the utmost respect for all Indians that is until I started going to their Casinos and they ended up with all my money.
 

Our good friend Don Hinson who left southern California for the good life in Branson where it is nice and warm and plenty of lakes and fishin’ and country music, well some of this is still true, driving into Branson few of the signs (Billboards) say anything about classic country music, Mel Tillis sold his theater, but moving into Branson was Roy Rogers Jr. his family and the R.R. Museum , that was probably a good move and just may end up being the best show in the south if they don’t sweet talk what few classic artist we still have into moving there.

Anyway Hinson has finished up his double version of the Hal Southern/Eddie Dean song of Hillbilly Heaven, Hinson wrote these lyric himself and in case you don’t know who Don Hinson is he was for a long time on the number one radio station in Los Angeles, KLAC. Ole Hinson does about a train load of different voices on both versions of this great old song and it is just a kick to listen to.

We have already started sending them to radio stations and we’ll send you a copy for, well they normally are a hundred twenty nine ninety five but, if you want a copy we’ll send it to you for five bucks.

And one other thing about good friend Hinson, he took a ride a week or so ago down to Oklahoma to catch one of the last of the Hank Thompson shows, Ole Hank is hanging up his guitar and retire to some good fishin’ I hope, down there in the great state of Texas. We don’t know how many shows Hank has left before he calls it quits but (if) he is still out there and (if) he even gets close to where you live and (if) you are a true fan of the greatest ever country music then do yourself a once in a life time favor and go see Hank Thompson, “Annie Over” cause it’s about all over for one of the greatest.
 

 We need to finish up what we started putting material together on the west coast country shows from those great 50’s years with Billy Mize and Cliff Crofford and all the Town Hall Party gang and the Melody Ranch gang and the Doye O’Dell Western Variety show and some of the things Cliffie Stone got into in those good years and some of the cowboys that have rode on, other then Monty Hale and Herb Jeffries there ain’t many left old friend, it is a sad day at the O.K. Corral , and we need to call Sue Thompson and see if she is up to anything, speaking of Sue, she did a real nice album with Don Gibson some years ago, what a sweet person she is.
 

We gotta’ go and we’ll see ye later, but just in case we don’t, take care of yourself.

 Don Bradley