Well, I was a disc jockey to start off with and I was writing a few songs and never done anything with them. Finally I wrote "Please Mr. Kennedy" and recorded it in a studio in Greenville, SC. I took it around to several places but nobody wanted it. I had some records pressed at a place in Georgia on a label called Country Jubilee. I sent about 50 copies around to radio stations and it became a hit everywhere I sent it. The same thing happened to "Looking For More In ‘64". I took it up to Nashville and played and no one there liked it. I took it up to Georgia to Slim Williamson who had just started Chart Records. He didn’t like it either but he went ahead and put it out. It turned out to be a pretty big record.

That turned out to be a huge record.

According to Billboard that is the all-time country comedy record.

Wow! I didn't know that.

Oh, you didn't know that? I believe it's written in the liner notes of one of my CDs.

That is outstanding! It is definitely one of my all-time favorites.

Well, you know, I never did care about getting famous. I guess I lost a lot by not pursuing things. I just never did want to be somebody big, you know?

Uh-huh, But you must have enjoyed what you were doing though, right?

Yeah, I liked what I was doing. I just never cared about being famous or anything like that.

Tell me about "The New Frontier".

That was a follow-up to "Please Mr. Kennedy". I did the same with it as "Please Mr. Kennedy". I paid for the session down in Georgia and Shelby Singleton, who worked for Mercury Records at the time, picked it up and released it on the Rush Records label. The flip side to it was "Husbands In Law" and that killed that record!

You mean "Husbands In Law" became the hit?

Yeah!

That was a good record too, though. I had another recording of that before yours. I really didn’t know you had wrote and recorded that until I got your CD with it on it.

Oh, really? I didn’t know anyone else had recorded it.

It was a comedy record by "Danny and Smoochy" called "Creamed Country Corn". It really wasn’t all that good to be honest. As a matter of fact it was released on Shelby Singleton’s SSS International label. I think I still have it around here somewhere.

Huh! I have never heard of anyone else doing that.

If I still have it, I’d be glad to send a copy to you. (Doh! I already sold that one!)

Sheb Wooly (Ben Colder) covered me on "Running Bare". I don’t think it was ever released as a single, though. Just an album cut.

Yes, but I liked your version much better.

Charlie Walker covered me on "Truck Drivin’ Cat With Nine Wives". He can’t sing anyway . . .

Yeah, He had "Please Don’t Squeeze My Sharmon".

Yep. So they played his cut, but it didn’t go nowhere. I thought that was going to be a hit record, but it didn’t do nothing. It made the charts, but it didn’t do all that great. I had a lot of records that . . . it’s hard to explain. I had the one on Kennedy and he got killed. I had "When They Sent My Old Lady To The Moon", then the space ship blew up (Apollo 13) and that killed that record. There was one about Spiro Agnew. You remember that one?

Yep, as a matter of fact I just got that one a couple weeks ago!

Well, by the time I got that one going good, they threw Spiro out of office. About the time I got "I Love Them Old Nasty Cigarettes" going they banned cigarette ads on TV. Then there was "Clean The Slate In ‘68". That would have been the biggest record I had, ever had. But Bobby Kennedy got killed. I re-cut that one and took the verse I had about him out but by then it was too late, it’d already ran outta steam. If you want me to write a song about somebody, why, something will happen to them every time! When I was on the top of my game, a guy from Florence offered me a TV show. I took him up on it because I was so tired of the road and came down to Florence and sat down and died. But I had fun.

On "Clean The Slate In ‘68", you said you re-cut that. Were there two releases on that?

Yes. The first release has a verse in there about Bobby Kennedy.

I was wondering about that. I have both releases, 59-1043 and 59-1048. I hadn’t really listened to the 45’s since that song was on the CD. It seemed odd to have two records with the same songs released that close together. I had been wondering why that was. Thanks for clearing that up for me! I was speaking to Joe Gibson a couple hours ago and he told me that "Clean The Slate In ‘68" was one of the fastest selling records Chart had had up to that time. He said, as you just did, that it would have been your biggest hit had not Bobby Kennedy gotten killed.

That would have been the biggest one. First of all, we had distributors and everything where it could have been a big, big record. But you know, I started with Chart Records and ended with Chart records. To start with they didn’t have the money to back it up and do it like it should have been done, but "Lookin’ For More In ’64" was a million seller in anybody’s book. We just didn’t have the power to get there, you know. The way Nashville was in the 60’s if you weren’t in that little crowd, you didn’t get anywhere!

Yep, I’ve heard that before.

I believe I got up to number 4 in billboard with that one.

I don’t have the Billboard charts, but Cashbox lists it at # 8.

I was with SESAC back then. At that time SESAC paid you according to how high in the charts you got. I made a lot of money from SESAC on these records. I had three in a row that made top 10. "Tiger In My Tank" and "Mother In Law" were the other two. "Lookin’ For More In ‘64" should have been a #1 record. But if you wasn’t in that little click in Nashville back in the ‘60s, you ain’t got a chance. I had 3 hit records before I ever go on the Grand Ole Opry. And I was practically insulted when I did get there and I never went back anymore.

Really? What happened?

Well, they were just cold. They didn’t treat you right.

I’ve heard things like that before.

I wouldn’t ever put my foot back on that stage again.

Huh. I was wondering why I’d read that you’d made only one Grand Ole Opry appearance. I guess it’s better not to be there than to be insulted while you are there.

Bobby Lord introduced me and I had 3 encores!

Man, that’s super!

What happened was, they had about 6 or 8 microphones out there on the stage to sing in and some down lower for the guitars and things. I asked someone back stage which microphone should I use. He said "Use that one unless you want to get down on your knees and use this one".

Oh, Man!

I started to not go on at all. I almost turned around and walked off. But I’ve not been back since. And Ralph Emory is one of the most arrogant people in show business. He had a local show there in town on WSM. He asked me how was I fortunate enough to get on his show?

How were you fortunate enough to get on his show?

I said, "Well, these free shows ain’t hard to get on!" He ain’t never said another word to me and he’s not played a one of my records!

Well, I will be.

We’d be out on the road, and I get one of the boys to call in and ask for one. But he’d never play it.

I’d read things like that about Ralph, but I don’t think he’s like that now. Or has been for a long time actually.

No, I believe he went to school and learned how to be decent to people! I’m serious. I believe when he got to doing TV, he went to school and got some training cause back in the old days he was the most arrogant fellow you’ve ever seen.

I think that was because back in the day he was probably the most powerful disc jockey in country music. It may have went to his head a little.

He may have more money than me, but he ain’t happier than I am!

Speaking of being happy, how was your fishing trip?

Boy, I caught a bunch of ‘em! The wind was blowing hard but I did manage to catch a bunch of fish. The wind liked to have blew me out of the boat!

What do you usually fish for?

I fish down at Myrtle Beach usually for flounder. They’re just starting to bite now, along about April or so.

I like to fish for bass myself. Every summer when I go back to Kentucky to visit my family, my best friend Jeff Robinson and I try to get in some fishing. We like to wade the creeks and fish for Red Eyes (Rock Bass) and those Yellow creek bass. Man, that’s some kind of fun!

Down around Merle’s Inlet is about all where we fish. We got a lot of good rivers down here but, the fish ain’t in them anymore like they used to be. I don’t know what’s going on.

I do! It’s the chemicals that’s getting poured into the rivers and streams.

It’s about a waste of time going in the rivers to fish. The oceans about the only place you can catch any fish now.

Hmm. I’ve never been fishing in the sea, but I’ve always wanted to.

Well if you want to come down here one of these days, give me a call! I’ll take you!

I believe I’ll do that! That sounds like a great time! Getting back to the music, how did you hit upon the idea of the "year" songs? (Lookin’ For More In ’64, Still Alive in ‘65", etc)

I can’t explain what motivated me to write anything, I just wrote ‘em. In 1961 I was a disc jockey in Bishopville, SC. The farmers were catching it tough, things were kind of rough you know. That’s where "Please Mr. Kennedy" came from. I sold 10,000 copies of that one in Bishopville on the radio. It only had a population of 3000 people.

I guess people were buying them for their friends off somewhere or something!

I'm serious, people were driving through and hearing it on their car radio.

Oh, I see. Yeah!

People were ordering these things! I was selling them for a dollar a record. It was first released on Country Jubilee Records and didn’t go anywhere. One day I was fixing to head to the beach to go fishing and I got a phone call. It was Randy Wood from Dot Records. He asked me was I the one who had "Please Mr. Kennedy" and I said I was. He said he wanted it. They had about 20,000 orders for it up in Charlotte, SC and didn’t know where to get it. I sent him the master and it came out on Dot Records. The story goes that Randy was good friends with President Eisenhower and he played it for him. Eisenhower didn’t like it and so Dot stopped it. It laid around for 4 or 5 months and Ace Record got a hold of it. But by that time it had already played out. "New Frontier" was put out on Rush Records and on Smash Records. I didn’t put out any more until "Lookin’ For More In ‘64".

Tell me the story of how you got that to Slim Williamson.

I recorded it in Greenville, SC and took it to Nashville. I played it around up there but nobody would give me the time of day. Nobody liked it. I had read in Record World where Slim had acquired Chart Records. Now Slim hardly had enough money to buy groceries with. I came back through Georgia on my way home and stopped in Louisville where Slim was. I played it for him and he didn’t like it too much either. I finally talked him into putting it out. I said I’d pay half if he’d pay half. We pressed up about 1500 copies and me and my wife and Slim and his wife licked all those envelopes and mailed them! It took off! We were in the top 20 before we even had a record to sell! We went to see Joe Talbot at Sounds of Nashville and showed him the charts and he agreed to distribute it for us. That thing stayed in the top 10 for six months. Hell, Slim didn’t know anything about the music business. People would come along and dump stuff in his lap! When Ronnie McDowell had that song "The King Is Gone", Slim didn’t like it either. I was in Nashville when he came in for that one. He told ‘em to go ahead and put it out that he was going to Florida!

Slim told me pretty much the same thing. He said he was afraid that it would ruin Ronnie’s name and he’d rather he didn’t put it out.

You talked to Slim? Hell, I thought he was dead!

Oh no! As a matter of fact he asked for your phone number and I forgot to give it to him. I’ll send it down to him though.

I got him to sign Lynn Anderson. He was diddlin’ around trying to get Liz Anderson. I said "Hey man, you got the singer right there in Lynn, Liz can’t sing!" Yeah, Slim didn’t know anything about the music business!

How did the song "Shaving Cream" come about?

That was my only one on Capricorn records. That song was recorded back in the 40’s.

Yeah, by Benny Bell. It was played a lot on a radio show I used to listen to called "The Dr. Demento Show".

The quality of the record was real bad, so Slim called me up and said that we should record it. This was between Chart & Scorpion. So we did. How he got hooked up with Capricorn, I don’t know. I don’t really know how well the record done. I know one distributor stand in Shreveport, LA sold about 12,000 copies, but I didn’t get anything out of it. I never really made any money from the records. I made most of my money from SESAC and later BMI. When SESAC stopped paying by the chart position I moved all my stuff over to BMI.

You stayed with the label until the end, right?

I never changed. I started and ended with Chart.

Do you know anything about the end of the company?

No . . . see, when Slim went with RCA, they were only interested in Lynn Anderson and I got moved to the bottom of the barrel. Then when he got it back, I came back to life with "Running Bare" and a few others. Then I don’t know what happened to the label.

Well, in 1972 Slim sold out to Bill Worden and moved back to Ga. Bill Worden didn’t do too much with it and the label folded. What I’d like to know is some of the details in that period from ’72 to ’74. It appears to be a mystery.

Yeah, I don’t know what happened either.

Which songs did you record in Nashville? I think you did most of your recording in Greenville, SC didn’t you?

Yes, I did. Most of "Truck Driving Cat With Nine Wives" was recorded in Nashville. All the ones you hear with background singers were done in Nashville. I had most of my successes in Greenville, though. "Looking For More In ‘64", "Running Bare", all the early hits were done in Greenville. Of course in Nashville we had Lloyd Green on steel, Jimmy Capps? I think Jimmy Capps, on guitar, Pig Robbins on piano. Is Pig still around?

I think so. I haven’t tried to track him down yet, but he’s on the list!

Ole Pig is something else! You can sing him a song one time and that’s it! He must have heard 20 new songs a day, but once it all it took. I ain’t seen him in over 20 years, but I’ll bet I could walk up to him and say hello and he’d say "Jim, what’s you a doing!" He never forgets.

I don’t doubt that at all. He is a very gifted man.

Bruce Elrod of Lost Gold Records is going to have a booth set up at Fan Fare this year and he’s asked me to come up there. You ought to come up too.

That sounds like fun.

People don’t know who I am any more, though.

Well they do and they don’t.

Maybe some of the old timers remember me, but I was a cat on the walk at one time!

There’s no doubt about that. I have almost everything you released. There’s only one that I know of that I don’t have and that’s "Going Home To Die".

Do you have a copy of "Whiskey Sampler"?

I sure do!

I would like to have a copy of that. I lost my only copy. I thought that was a hit record. I thought it was a funny song.

Me too. That was the last one released on Chart Records. I’ll send you a copy.

I don’t know what happened to that one. I thought it was funny.

Well, my guess is that who ever was running the label didn’t know too much about the business and didn’t promote the records very well. At least that’s the idea I’ve gotten from talking to a few people.

You know, Bruce Elrod is about to have a baby wanting me to cut some more records. I thought I’d like to do "Whiskey Sampler" again. I’d lost my only copy of it and couldn’t remember how it went. One thing though, back when I was recording a lot I’d never write my songs down. I’d write them driving along in my car or something. I wrote "Runnin’ Bare" during a break in recording at the studio in Greenville. I wrote "Tiger In My Tank" driving back from Nashville. As a matter of fact, ole Slim was with me. He said "Man, that sounds like a hit song lets go back and record it." So we turned right around and went back to Nashville and recorded it the next day. I was driving along and saw a tiger’s tail hanging out from some cars that drove by and got the idea from that.

Well, Jim, I want to thank you for talking to me. I hope to see you at Fan Fare this year if I can make it. I also want to congratulate you on your induction into the South Carolina Music & Entertainment Hall of Fame back in December of 2000.

I appreciate it. I hope to see you at Fan Fare. Take care.

You too.