For the Record: A Musical Odyssey

For the Record

A Musical Odyssey

Copyright © 2014, 2015 Don Tolle.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-2835-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-2836-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-2837-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014904476

iUniverse rev. date: 01/30/2015

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 Dallas, Texas, 1972

Chapter 2 Big State Distributors, 1973

Chapter 3 Radio and Records

Chapter 4 A&M Records, Hollywood

Chapter 5 Atlanta, Georgia

Chapter 6 Boulder in the Stream

Chapter 7 Coming of Age

Chapter 8 A Noble Vision

Chapter 9 A New Day

Chapter 10 Nashville

Chapter 11 On My Own

Chapter 12 A Golden Year

Chapter 13 The Stage Is Set

Chapter 14 When You’re Not a Lady

Chapter 15 The Man in the Mirror

Chapter 16 Number One

Chapter 17 Triumph and the Aftermath

Chapter 18 MCA Records, Nashville

Chapter 19 Pookie Bear Music

Chapter 20 The Dance

Chapter 21 Living on the Edge

Chapter 22 In the Valley

Chapter 23 Phoenix Rising

Chapter 24 A Far Cry from Here

Chapter 25 Another Wisdom

Chapter 26 A Promise Kept

Epilogue

Prologue

On a beautiful spring morning in 1978, I took care of some yard chores in back of our condo in Dunwoody, Georgia, in North Atlanta. A chaise lounge chair on the patio invited me over, and I decided to take a break to relax for a few minutes while basking in the warm rays of the sun. The tulip poplar tree overhead had grown several feet in the three short years since my wife, Sherron, and I moved into the neighborhood from our apartment out on the Chattahoochee River. A soft breeze played with the bright green leaves of a new season, and I closed my eyes for a moment to listen.

My life had changed dramatically in the preceding few years, with major events coming one after the other. After serving four years in the US Navy, I was discharged at the end of December 1969, and I returned to McKinney, Texas, just north of Dallas, to resume a life that the war in Vietnam had put on hold. I didn’t have a clear direction as to what I wanted to do in the first few weeks after returning from my stint in the navy. I hadn’t had much time to think about the future while sailing around the western Pacific and off the coast of South Vietnam. My entire focus during that period had been to do my duty, complete my four-year enlistment, and then figure out what to do with the rest of my life after I got back home.

Like many of the other young recruits I served with at Great Lakes Naval Training Center north of Chicago, I returned home on leave after my basic training and married my high school sweetheart. My fellow recruits and I were just overgrown boys suspended somewhere between adolescence and adulthood and were resigned to the fact that we were most likely bound for Vietnam. We were all trying to hold on to something from home to carry with us as we entered a dangerous and uncertain time in our young lives.

My early marriage was a disaster from the start, and within a couple of months of my discharge, we divorced. We were just kids when we married. She was seventeen, and I was nineteen. I was trying to rescue her from a sad and unstable life with her family, and she was running away from it. We had two young sons from our brief marriage, which caused me much pain at our parting and continued to haunt me through the years. There are some wounds in our lives that never completely heal. If we are ever going to find peace in this life, we have to learn to live with and accept the things we cannot change. It would take me years to realize this truth, but I finally did.

I had been playing in a band in Dallas before entering the navy and turned to my guitar for solace after the divorce. It was like reuniting with my best friend and quickly became a repository for all my feelings. I began writing songs out of need and performed them for friends, family, and anyone else who would listen. Sweet Caroline, If You Could Read My Mind, and For the Good Times, among others, were a few of the covers I included in my set. Soon I began performing at local restaurants, where I would often sit in as a guest performer while the regular singer took a break. Steak & Ale was a favorite venue, along with others. Most times, though, I played in someone’s living room or kitchen, performing for friends and family over a few beers.

I had a series of jobs during this period, the last as a postal worker on the all-night shift at the US Postal Service in Richardson, Texas. Through it all, I continued writing, and with the purchase of a tape recorder, I began taping my songs to critique and share with friends. It was a form of therapy and offered the hope of a brighter day. When I was writing songs, my imagination took flight and helped me find my way through the melancholy and sense of drift during the first couple of years after returning home from the military. This set me on a path that would ultimately lead to a world I could not have imagined at the time and to the realization of dreams yet unborn.

These thoughts were on my mind that morning in the backyard as I considered how far I had traveled from those days in a relatively short period of time. I wasn’t asleep as I lay beneath the poplar tree; rather, I was floating somewhere between the conscious and subconscious worlds, where the lines between reality and dreams are blurred. Caressed by the warm rays of the sun streaming down through the trees like lightning from heaven, I was carried away by the music of a gentle breeze blowing through the leaves, and I drifted off into a dream.

Chapter 1

Dallas, Texas, 1972

I don’t know where the ambition came from. There was nothing in my humble beginnings to encourage or nourish it. But it was always there. I didn’t recognize it as such when I was a boy, because it came naturally to me. In flights of fantasy, I often imagined myself in situations that called for heroic action on my part, where I would prevail over incredible odds to save the day. Playing Little League baseball, I regularly fantasized about hitting the ball into the upper deck at Yankee Stadium with the bases loaded and the game on the line in the bottom of the ninth inning. At other times, I dreamed of rescuing the pretty girl whose desk sat next to mine in class, and who had secretly captured my heart, from some distress out in the schoolyard, thereby gaining her affection. These and many other adolescent daydreams and mind movies took root and fed my desire to make something of myself and achieve something noteworthy.

Most of my dreams and fantasies, however, were about achieving fame as a recording artist. I had a lifelong love of music that dated back to my earliest memories of my grandmother taking my siblings and me to church with her on Sunday mornings, where she was the pianist. I was probably about six or seven years old at the time, and it was there that I first experienced the power of music to inspire and lift me up, when I got my first full dose of the congregation belting out hymns and gospel standards at peak volume and in full harmony. Songs like The Old Rugged Cross, In the Garden, and Amazing Grace filled my senses to overflowing and made me to want to sing.

The First Assembly of God was a small fundamentalist church on a backstreet a couple of blocks off the main road in Midland, Texas. There was an altar down in front of the pulpit, and the preacher—a large, portly man—regularly fell to his knees before it during fiery sermons and fits of rapture, pounding on the top of it with one fist for emphasis while waving the Bible above his head with the other. Finally coming to the end, in a voice hoarse with emotion, he’d shout, Hallelujah, praise God, and amen, his face glistening with sweat and glowing red. He sometimes collapsed in exhaustion from the effort before the congregation. Inspired by his example, the gathered then began testifying, with many speaking in tongues while waving their arms in the air, and a few gave way to the emotion of the moment and fainted into the arms of whoever was nearest them.

It was quite a bit for a little boy of six to take in, and I remember being scared much of the time from all the emotion inside the walls of the church and from fear of the devil coming to get me. But what I remember best—and what was most lasting—was the music. I loved the music. What the congregation lacked in numbers, they more than made up for in passion and commitment. When they rose as one and burst forth into song, they held nothing back, and I was never the same after experiencing it for the first time.

I was hooked on first listen, and it altered the trajectory of my life from an early age. From that moment on, wherever I went and whatever I was doing, I was usually singing—out loud in an empty restroom or locker room at school; under my breath in a crowded hallway; on the job with my stepfather through endless hot summer days; along with my favorite songs on the radio; or to no one in particular as I skipped along the unpaved streets of my old neighborhood. Singing songs like Peggy Sue, Diana, or Only the Lonely sent my spirit soaring and made me feel happy. It still does.

Later I sang in choral groups in school and a boys’ quartet for a time when it was offered. Teaching myself to play guitar in the seventh grade opened up a whole new world for me. I could now accompany myself on guitar as I sang along. Soon my first rough original melodies were making their way from somewhere inside of me, down through my arms to the hands and fingers, onto the neck of my guitar, and out into the room and the world beyond. I had found my purpose.

A student of records from my earliest days, I studied them in minute detail on the 45 rpm records that were the industry standard of the day. I was curious about anything and everything. They came in sleeves to protect them from scratches, and pictures of the artist, fan club information, plugs for the album, and various other tidbits of information usually adorned the sleeves. I internalized the music first before absorbing all the information contained on the labels: the artist, songwriters, titles, song lengths, publishing companies, producers, copyright information, and so on. Nothing escaped my attention. I don’t know how I deciphered all of this, but I did to a large degree.

My record collection, though small, likely never numbering more than twenty at any given time, was my most prized possession, and I pored over the records endlessly for any scrap of information I might have missed previously. An opportunity to view a friend’s collection was always a cause for celebration, and an hour in a record shop was heaven. I had no particular plan in mind, as I didn’t know enough to have a plan. But I knew I wanted to make music, and thus, the seeds of my future were sown in the fertile fields of my imagination at an early age.

These were some of the events that led me to that fateful day north of Dallas in 1973. Armed with a quarter-inch tape of a few of my songs I had recorded, and emboldened by a sense of purpose, I summoned up the courage to act on my ambition. In a giant leap of faith, I reached out to another world that day, which had thus far only existed in my dreams yet had beckoned to me all of my life.

I was familiar with the names of all the major labels of the day—Columbia, RCA, Capitol, and Warner Bros. Records among them—and thought some might have regional offices in the Dallas area. One day, on impulse, I checked the phone book for listings and, sure enough, found that many did in fact have offices in the area. With shaking hands, I picked up the telephone and called the first number before my newfound courage deserted me. Being completely unfamiliar with the inner workings of record companies and their hierarchies, I suddenly realized I had no idea whom I should ask to speak with as the phone began to ring.

Resisting an impulse to hang up before embarrassing myself, I held on with heart pounding, saying to the receptionist who answered, I’m a singer and songwriter and would like to speak with someone regarding my songs. After replying, That would be the regional promotion director, but he’s out of the office, she took my name and number. Feeling proud of myself and emboldened for having taken that initial step, I called RCA Records, Columbia Records, and Capitol Records in quick succession and got virtually the same response from them all. I would discover later that promotion directors spent most of their time out of the office.

That day would prove to be a fateful one in my life and career, and it continues to reverberate down to the present. I sat back and wondered what, if anything, would come of my bold foray into the unknown from my tiny apartment in Plano, Texas. The week passed without anyone returning my calls, and by the time the weekend rolled around, which I usually spent bent over a guitar and singing, I had pretty much put the phone calls out of my mind. After all, it had been a Hail Mary attempt, and my expectations were not that high. These people didn’t know me, and I assumed my call was just one of the many they received daily from others like me. But I had taken action and reached out across the great gulf that must be crossed if we are to achieve our dreams. Timing is everything, and fortune favors the bold. My efforts were rewarded the following week when the phone rang, and my world changed. Hello, this is Luther Wood. I’m the regional promotion director for Capitol Records, and I’m returning a call from Don Tolle.

This was an age before answering machines or voice mail. I could easily have missed his call and assumed, as with all the others on my list that day, that my call had not been returned and that my information most likely had been discarded in the wastebasket. We would have never met, and my life could have turned out much differently than it has. But such are the mystical machinations of the unseen hand of fate, and on this day, I was there to answer the call.

Luther Wood was a bright, sophisticated country boy from Highpoint, North Carolina, who could hardly contain his enthusiasm for life and music. The contents of that initial conversation are now distant, but I remember him putting me at ease with his folksy yet confident manner. The question What kind of songs are you writing, and who are some of your favorite artists, Don? led to a five- or ten-minute conversation in which something I said must have caught his ear, because the call ended with him inviting me to bring a tape of my songs to his home for a listen the next day. I felt the earth move as I hung up the telephone afterward. I didn’t know what, but I knew something important had just happened. I felt it in my bones.

I would learn in our first meeting the next day that Luther had been an air-conditioning repairman before finding his way into the music business and had ambitions similar to mine. He was a songwriter as well and had already formed his own music publishing company, which he’d named Pot O’ Gold Music. Serendipity is a key building block in the DNA of all dream realization, for at the time we met, it just so happened that he was actively seeking another songwriter for his new company.

In addition to promoting records to radio for airplay, a routine part of his job was working with the artists on the Capitol Records roster when they came through his market on tour or promotional campaigns. He had access to and credibility with artists such as Sonny James, Glen Campbell, Joe South, and Johnny Rodriguez, who recorded for Capitol, and was therefore in a perfect position to play them songs for their future recording sessions. His goal was to build a successful music-publishing business featuring his songs as well as others. He was the only one who had returned my call from the previous week. But he was the one I was searching for.

I arrived at his ranch-style home in the suburb of Richardson, Texas, north of Dallas, five minutes early the next day. Unsure and nervous about what to say or how to act in this unfolding drama that nothing in my previous life had prepared me for other than my ambition, I decided to just be myself and speak from the heart. I took a deep breath while ringing the doorbell, and the door swung open almost immediately. There stood Luther, greeting me with a firm handshake, saying, Hello, Don. I’m Luther. Please come in. Somewhere in the recesses of my consciousness, I must have felt the door to my future swing open as well.

Luther was average height, about five foot nine, and had a solid build—somewhat stocky but not overweight. He greeted me with an ever-present smile and twinkling eyes, and after introducing me to his wife, who was very gracious, he led me into his home office. He had a desk and a couple of chairs in his office, and autographed publicity pictures of famous artists he worked with surrounded us on his office walls, along with numerous gold album and single awards addressed to him. I could not have been more impressed and was probably so wide-eyed with wonder that I never blinked the entire time I was there.

Luther was a dreamer—a born optimist—and we connected immediately. The nervous anticipation I had felt earlier was gone the minute we sat down to talk. As fate would have it, we were kindred spirits and forged a bond that day as we discussed songs and music and shared our life stories with each other. With our initial conversation complete, he reached for the tape I had placed on his desk, saying, Okay, let’s see what we have here, and quickly queued it up on a professional recorder in back of his desk. This was it—the moment I had dreamed of for as long as I could remember. All the endless hours spent playing my guitar, pouring my heart out into a lonely room, had brought me to this point in time. If he liked my songs, the dream would continue on to who-knew-where, and if not, I would go back home—to what, I could not even bear to contemplate.

He closed his eyes as he listened to the first couple of songs, occasionally opening them long enough to smile and nod his approval, and I could tell he liked them immediately. He then began offering comments and a suggestion here and there as the tape rolled. Having a professional—someone who was actually in the music business and knew what he was talking about—like my songs did wonders for my confidence. He seemed particularly impressed when a song called Rusty Nails, Puppy Dog Tails, and Little Boys began to play. Suddenly sitting upright in his leather chair after a few bars of the song played initially, he rewound the tape back to the beginning and, after turning the volume up slightly, listened intently all the way through to the end. A big smile appeared on his face, and he looked into my eyes with a directness that I’ve never forgotten. Now beaming and rubbing his chin, he said, I have a recording session scheduled next week to record some of my new songs, and maybe we could record a couple of yours as well, if time permits. I couldn’t believe my good fortune—all of this from one two-minute telephone call to the future.

The next week, I arrived on time at the studio where Luther was recording and walked into a world I had never known yet had dreamed of my entire life. The session was already in progress as I entered, and a tangible air of excitement crackled in the studio; it was electric and sent my senses reeling. The musicians positioned in different parts of the studio were playing, and Luther was singing one of his new songs. It was magic, and I knew instantly that I belonged in this place.

The feeling I had was something akin to the return of the native, as I distinctly remember feeling as if I were coming home in some way. I was surprised and impressed with his singing. He had a good voice and was not the least bit shy in front of the microphone. So much of what I have learned has been by observation and from absorbing what was going on around me. This scene was indelibly imprinted in my mind and has never left me. If you get a chance to sing your song, step up.

There was just enough time left at the end of the session to record a few of my songs. I had the tape of my songs that I’d played Luther at our initial meeting, and the musicians quickly determined the key I was singing in and the chord progressions of the songs, rapidly charting and learning them in a matter of minutes. All of these events were brand new for me. I felt as if I were being transported to some place in paradise as I slipped on the headset and heard these musicians playing my songs for the first time. Somewhere in the deepest recesses of my inner sanctum, where all mystery resides, I knew my life had changed and would never be the same. I had the sense that I was embarking on a voyage into the unknown, to some distant shore whose destination I knew not—but I knew I had to go. There was something out there beckoning to me—something I had been reaching for all my life.

The attention and interest of my newfound friend inspired me, and my songwriting rapidly improved in quality and quantity. I began writing with a new purpose and was inspired to dig a little deeper and reach a little further. It was an early lesson in the music business that I never forgot, and it would serve me well in the coming years. Talent thrives with inspiration from someone the songwriter hopes to impress and whose approval he or she desperately needs. This is a critical relationship for any new writer, and I found it in my new friend and mentor, Luther Wood.

The days became weeks, and weeks became months as 1973 passed, and I flourished under the attention of my new publisher and friend. At the time, I was working the night shift from 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. at the US post office in Richardson, Texas. It was a good job, considering some of the others I had taken, but was a surreal experience. I usually only saw the sun as it was coming up, and then I went home and to bed. I had no social life as a result, but I did have plenty of time to think and write. Luther spent a great deal of time traveling, but we managed to stay in touch. I was reluctant to call him without a reason, for fear of seeming too needy. This was years before that word—needy—went mainstream and became a part of the national lexicon a couple of decades later. But Luther and I enjoyed a natural and easy relationship, and camaraderie developed between us during that first year that would endure for many years.

I remember having a feeling of being stuck or bogged down toward the end of the first year of our partnership. I would later learn the term for this: creative frustration. It had nothing to do with Luther and everything to do with me. I was restless and ready to grow.

Luther and I sometimes went weeks without speaking, as the demands of his position with Capitol Records as well as his family commanded most of his time. During these times, the fear of him losing interest in me occasionally crept into my thoughts. And it was at one of these insecure moments when we hadn’t spoken for several weeks that the telephone rang late one October day and the always-jovial voice of my friend and benefactor greeted me. As I recall, we had our usual conversation, catching up on each other’s activities.

How’s the writing coming along?

Where have your travels taken you, and which artists have you been working with?

Quickly coming to the point, he said, Look, there’s a position in record promotion open at an independent record distributor in Dallas. I think you would be perfect for the job, and you really should consider applying for it. It’s essentially the same job I have with Capitol Records, except you would be working with multiple smaller independent labels, and without the travel requirements I have because of my larger territory. At the conclusion of the conversation, he said, The position will be heavily contested, and all the other applicants are already working in the business, but why not toss your name into the hat? You just never know.

He further explained, This is a prime entry-level position to learn the nuts and bolts of the record business. Additionally, it offered a unique opportunity to make contacts with the numerous independent record labels that were flourishing at the time and could lead to greater opportunities for future advancement if one impressed. My initial response was gratitude for the fact that he felt highly enough of my ability to call and encourage me to apply for the job. However, I also felt fear and apprehension at the thought of stepping into a world that nothing had prepared me for, and which I knew nothing about, to seek a prime position with no résumé or work experience that qualified me for it. But with Luther’s strong vote of confidence in my ability, and for fear of disappointing him by not acting on his suggestion, I decided to call for an interview.

Chapter 2

Big State Distributors, 1973

Independent distributors functioned as promotion and sales forces within their respective territories for independent record companies. They performed all the necessary tasks of marketing the smaller independent labels’ records, which, because of their smaller size and limited resources, could not afford to perform for themselves. These distributors played a critical role for the independent labels of that era, thereby making it possible for many to prosper and grow into larger entities over time.

Big State Distributors was famous in its day for the power and influence it wielded in getting records played on the radio early and breaking new acts for independent record companies. The Dallas and Ft. Worth market was one of a select group of markets in the country that could single-handedly launch an artist’s career, and Big State occupied a unique and important position within the record business as a result.

It was one of the last in a long line of major independent record distributors that stretched all the way back to the 1950s, when most of the hits of the day were still on smaller independent labels. Sun, Scepter, Roulette, Stax, Buddah, King, Veejay, Laurie, Chess, Monument, Cadence, Atlantic, Motown, A&M, Vanguard, and Cameo were some of the labels that ruled the airwaves in their day. The approaching corporate takeover of the business was already underway at the time of Luther’s call to me that day, but it was not yet complete. Industry giants Columbia, RCA, MCA, and Warner Bros. Records were already acquiring many of the successful independent labels, but their complete domination of the business was still a few years away. My opportunity came as one era was ending and a new one was beginning.

Big State was founded and owned by the legendary Pappy Daily of Houston, Texas, where he also owned and operated Daily’s Record Distributors. Before he became a record distributor, Pappy Daily founded Starday Records, where he discovered and produced the first hit records on an artist out of East Texas named George Jones. There were several other regional as well as national hits by other artists that followed, as Starday was instrumental in defining an era in the vibrant Texas and Louisiana music scene of that day.

This eventually led to his founding of the record distributor in Houston that bore his name and, later, to Big State Distributors in Dallas. He had since turned over day-to-day operations to his two sons, Bud and Don Daily, but his legendary status and influence still cast a long shadow over his record distributors. Both carried all the major independent labels of their day and commanded enormous power and respect within the industry. Working in tandem, they had the power to break records, establish new careers out of the influential Texas and Louisiana market, and make dreams come true.

I almost talked myself out of making the call to Big State to inquire about the position that had opened. It’s hard to imagine now how differently my life would have turned out if not for that one telephone call. Reflecting back on my life and career, I feel there were few decisions I made as important as that one turned out to be. But at the time, I assumed there would be many others more qualified than me applying for the job, and there were. My résumé was thin and included no experience in the record business other than that of songwriter, which I neglected to mention when interviewing. However, in the end, my instinct and ambition won out, and I made the call one morning in 1973.

I spoke with Alta Hayes, the woman who would be hiring and supervising the new promotion director. Although I was as nervous as a teenager on my first date as I placed the call, something I said piqued her interest, and she set an appointment for the next day. I put down the phone afterward and gloried in the tremendous sense of accomplishment I felt for having made the call, let alone actually securing an interview. These were the feelings of one long on ambition but filled with the insecurities of someone lacking any experience on such a stage as this. Nothing in my life experience had prepared me for this moment, except my desire to rise.

Alta Hayes was in her mid to late forties when we met. By then, she was a little overweight, with the expanding girth that signaled the approach of middle age. Her hair was perpetually dyed jet black, and she made liberal use of lipstick and mascara, which she painted on daily in a futile attempt to deny and hold back the constant and cruel onslaught of time. But it was easy to see that once upon a time, she had been a beauty. The fading reminders of that day were still apparent to anyone who paused long enough to take a closer look.

Walking through the door that first day at Big State Distributors, I had the sense of crossing over a threshold—some invisible fault line dividing the past from the future, although I lacked the words to describe it in this way at the time. Alta Hayes came out to the front counter and, after sizing me up from head to toe, led me to her office for the interview, which was all the way in the back of the distributor. My antennae were on full alert as we passed through the large warehouse filled with row after row of albums, surrounded by offices on the outer perimeter. The place was buzzing with activity and perpetually in motion: phones ringing, loud music spilling out of a couple of offices, and employees moving swiftly in every direction. A palpable energy permeated the vast warehouse, with employees yelling