The Starday Story: The House That Country Music Built

BIBLIOGRAPHY

249 BIBLIOGRAPHY CHAPTER 1. YOU ALL COME The Starday Story—The House That Country Music Built relies extensively on personal interviews, the majority with Don Pierce. Other research materials for chapter 1 include scrapbooks and keepsakes kept by both Don Pierce and Patsy (Elshire) Astorga. Bud Daily, Pappy Daily’s son, also contributed to my understanding of the label’s early history and directed me to Bear Family’s “D” label box set liner notes by Colin Escott. Joyce Kelley and Darlena Blackwell, daughters of Jack Starns Jr. and Neva Starns, were also highly informative and friendly. Billboard’s The World of Country Music annual series (1964–70) was also of great assistance, with many articles written by both Daily and Pierce. I owe a great debt of gratitude to Andrew Brown, who provided me with transcripts from his interviews with Arlie Duff, Freddie Frank, and Bobby Black made between 1996 and 2005. Poughkeepsie, New York, disc jockey Darwin Lee Hill was also kind enough to send me an interview he had made with Don Pierce that I helped arrange. The Duff family was also of great support. After winning an autographed photo of Arlie Duff on eBay, I was contacted by Duff’s daughter, Becky Rippy, who had never seen that photo. I gave her the photo and in return she sent a copy of Duff’s long-out-of-print autobiography, which provided valuable reading. Perhaps the single most helpful written account of the early Starday period was written by Don Pierce himself. In 1990, at the request of his family, Pierce typed up fiftysix pages of life memories and titled it Life and Times of Don Pierce: Family, Friends and Happenings. On several occasions, when I asked about a particular topic, Pierce asked me to use the quote from his unpublished manuscript. Other sources for this chapter include George Jones’s autobiography, written with Tom Carter. Though Pierce lobbied hard for an extensive interview with Jones on my behalf, when it finally happened, we only had time for seven or eight questions. I used a few quotes from Jones’s book to fill out the rest of his story. Also helpful was Martin Hawkins’s insightful article chronicling the life of Pappy Daily, and Bill Millar’s excellent interview with Eddie Noack for New Kommotion. As I set out to write the story of a record label, I found books on Motown, Atlantic, Gennett, Sun, and Chess to be particularly useful. Those books, as well as others that have informed my understanding of country music, are included in the following notes. Author interviews that helped shape this chapter were conducted with Don Pierce, Patsy (Elshire) Astorga, Darlena Blackwell, Bud Daily, Joyce Kelley, Sleepy LaBeef, and Becky Rippy. “Blackie Crawford – Pride of the Southwest” (1953). Cowboy Songs Magazine 30 (December). Brown, Andrew (2005). “On the Road with Blackie Crawford and the Western Cherokees: The Bobby Black Interview.” Unpublished. 250 BIBLIOGRAPHY Cohodas, Nadine (2000). Spinning Blues into Gold: The Chess Brothers and the Legendary Chess Records. New York: St. Martin’s. Cooper, Daniel (1995). Lefty Frizzell: The Honky-Tonk Life of Country Music’s Greatest Singer. New York: Little, Brown. Daily, H. W. “Pappy” (1964). “Pappy Daily Speaks His Mind.” Billboard: The World of Country Music (Nov. 14). Duff, Arlie (1983). Y’all Come. Austin, TX: Eakin Press. Early, Gerald (1995). One Nation Under a Groove: Motown and American Culture. Hopewell: Ecco Press. Erlewine, Michael, Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine (1997). All Music Guide to Country. San Francisco: Miller Freeman. Escott, Colin (1995). Liner notes to The “D” Singles Vol. 1 (BCD 15832). Habergeon, Germany: Bear Family Records. ——— (1996). Tattooed on Their Tongues: A Journey Through the Backrooms of American Music. New York: Schirmer Books. Hawkins, Martin (1976). “Martin Hawkins on the Starday Label, and “Pappy” Daily, Its Founder.” Country Music Review (December). London, England: Concorde Distribution. Jones, George, with Tom Carter (1997). I Lived To Tell It All. New York: Dell Publishing. Kennedy, Rick (1999). Jelly Roll, Bix, and Hoagy: Gennett Studios and the Birth of Recorded Jazz. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Kinsbury, Paul (1998). The Encyclopedia of Country Music. New York: Oxford University Press. Malone, Bill (1985). Country Music USA. Austin: University of Texas Press. McNutt, Randy (1988). We Wanna Boogie: An Illustrated History of the American Rockabilly Movement. Hamilton: HHP Books. Millar, Bill (1976). “Talk Back with Noack Pt. 1.” New Kommotion vol. 2, no. 2 (Issue 12). Middlesex, England: Shazam Promotions. ——— (1976...