12 February 2006
I’m sending this newsletter early because my new job requires me to be on travel this week. Yes, I’m still waiting to hear from the publisher about my biography manuscript.
FARON FIFTY YEARS AGO: The world premiere of Faron’s first movie, Hidden Guns, was held in Indianapolis, Indiana, at the Lyric Theatre over the weekend of February 10-12, 1956. (The dates fall on the same days this year, Friday-Sunday.) Faron and the Deputies presented a concert each night, and other performers included Jean Shepard and Hawkshaw Hawkins. The Wilburn Brothers were still with Faron at the time. Gordon Terry recalled, “We worked with the movie a lot of places when it first came out, in between the pictures.” The movie had been filmed the previous summer, with a preliminary showing at the disc jockey convention in Nashville in November, while Faron was in the hospital with hepatitis.
INTERVIEW: The day I met Ed Gregory (read the story of our meeting at http://ddiekman.tripod.com/id41.html), he invited my sister and me to his “Stars of the Grand Ole Opry” show at the Florida State Fair in Tampa. He said I could interview people for my book there. Kayo and I flew to Florida in February 2000, and Ed provided us with show tickets for both performances, backstage passes, and an invitation to his barbecue for the performers. The wonderful shows contained 30 acts and ran for over three hours. I met many of Faron’s friends and fellow performers that day and over the next several years I attended the fair. Bobby Bare, Jean Shepard, Marvin Rainwater, Tommy Cash, Jimmy C. Newman, and Rex Allen, Jr. are some of the people I interviewed that first day.
LETTERS:
Keith Jenkins from near Atlanta writes, “Thanks again for a great newsletter! The more I learn about Faron, the higher my regard for him as an entertainer and a person. I just acquired a new Faron LP today – ‘Falling in Love’ on Capitol – in fairly good condition. This makes #23 in my FY LP collection. I’m praying that all will go swiftly and smoothly with the book’s release.”
Ron Reagan wants to know if “Three Days” and “I Let It Slip Away” are available on CD. He says, “My dad has these two songs on an old range/yellow Capitol 45 that I remember listening to as a kid (I’m only 32, btw, and a big fan of Faron and Hank, Sr. both!). I managed to find a good CD copy via WinMX to replace the scratchy 45 on ‘I Let It Slip Away’ but the only version I’ve found of ‘Three Days’ was a very later remake. Also, do you know of any CD releases of ‘Old Courthouse’ that was on one of his 60’s LP’s for Mercury? Thanks!”
Response: Both sides of the Capitol single are in Faron’s Capitol box set. You can also find “Three Days” on the CD, “Faron Young: Live Fast, Love Hard (Original Capitol Recordings, 1952-1962).” You probably know Willie Nelson wrote “Three Days.” It reached number 7 on Billboard in 1962. I don’t know where you could find “Old Courthouse” (written by Danny Dill and Wayne Walker) except on the original LPs. Those are the 1964 “Story Songs For Country Folks” and the 1965 “Faron Young’s Greatest Hits.” Not many of his Mercury songs, other than the most famous ones, have been put on CD.