Nashville Years II

In 1959, when I was working on being one year old, Earl Sinks (later a.k.a. Earl "Snake" Richards) took over for a brief stint as lead singer of The Crickets, after that group had split with its more famous lead singer and songwriter Buddy Holly. He wrote and recorded songs for the music industry in 1960s Nashville: "House of Blue Lights" (United Artists Records), "Corrine, Corrina" (United Artists Records), "Margie, Who's Watching the Baby?" (Ace of Hearts Records). He had contributed to the B-movie industry by starring or costarring in three films: That Tennessee Beat (1966), Girl from Tobacco Row (1966), White Lightnin' Road (1967).

http://www.myspace.com/earlrichards

http://www.rockabilly.nl/references/messages/earl_sinks.htm

When Ron Weathers and I walked into Earl's office in Goodlettesville, TN, we saw memorabilia and awards from a varied career that had already spanned more than 20 years. I was young, and Ron was ambitious. Our heads spun. Earl could probably tell. Once he heard something—probably, as with Ron, it was "Daisy"—that he thought he could do something with, we didn't really stand a chance. How many young songwriters walk into their first Nashville meeting and basically walk out with a publishing deal and what looks very like a recording contract? My memory might be bumping some things together and mixing them up, but that's more or less how it happened.

Not only did Earl spin our heads in his office, he took us to a recording studio on Music Row (the name of which I've forgotten but I remember that Waylon Jennings had recorded there), where we did three songs. Well, we didn't actually fully record three songs. Earl had an old project in the archives there. He had the engineer put the reels on, remove or mute the singer's voice, and then I sang to the tracks. There I was, singing in a bona fide Nashville recording studio right out of the gate. I was thrilled and flabbergasted!

After such sudden success, such a heady experience, Ron and I had no hesitation, paused for no negotiation, when offered both a publishing contract and a production deal (one step short of a recording contract). Each was for five years. At some point I had already signed a 10-year management contract with Ron, so obviously I had no problem signing Earl's deals. Ron, who as my manager was supposed to be protecting me, when the contracts were handed to him simply handed on to me and said, "Sign these." (It happened something like that.) The irony is that Ron, in allowing me to sign Earl's contracts, more or less cut himself out of the picture. He still had me for 10 years (and 25% of my earnings), but in all ways that mattered, I was taken right out of his hands. He never really had a say in anything related to me from that time onward. Before two years had passed, Ron and his contract were completely out of the picture, and Earl had me to himself.