Gene visite la C.M.D.J. Convention juin 1956, Nashville

Extraits de Country Song RoundUp, avril 1957.

Merci pour ces coupures de presse, Bob...
Ton oeil de lynx a t-il repéré un certain Jerry Hubbard sur la première photo ?

Et non, je n'avais pas reconnu Jerry Reed, le copain de Gene, et compositeur de Crazy Leg, Guitar Man, etc... Merci Stampede.

C'est drôle que le journaliste qui a écrit les légendes, ne l'ai pas mentionné.










Tu les connaissais, je suppose...

Voici la dernière photo de cette publication (pour la route, comme on dit).

Gilles, tu es le seul a réagir, merci ami.

Le manque de réactions et de dialogues m'étonne toujours autant.

Je suis tout autant surpris que toi...
Ils n'ont pas du voir la lumière !
Tu devrais "parsemer" tes messages de "paillettes" et autres "joyeusetés" qui n'ont rien à voir avec le sujet... pour les attirer !
Ou alors, tu te trompes en pensant que ces documents sont peu courants. Chaque visiteur de ce forum devait les connaître depuis de nombreuses années ce qui n'a donc suscité aucune réaction ni remerciement !
Mais, continue à poster ce genre de "banalité", je suis personnellement preneur...
Tout de bon, ami bob !

moi aussi je suis preneur Bob.

Continue Bob ,je pense que malgré le silence tout le monde apprécie ces photos.

Je
joint ci dessous une interview de GENE où il parle de cette convention,
je ne sais pas si les choses ce sont vraiment passé comme il le raconte
mais apparemment il n'avait pas gardé un bon souvenir.

Jimmy je sais que c'est beaucoup te demander, ce serait bien si tu pouvais traduire


First published in
International Times, March 1971

Some 13 years ago, Gene
Vincent (né Vincent Gene Craddock) had the nation’s
number-one song in a rockin’ ditty called "Be Bop-A-Lula"
(it sold three million copies). It, along with Elvis’s "Hound
Dog", Carl Perkins’ "Blue Suede Shoes" and Bill
Haley’s "See You Later, Alligator" more-or-less
spearheaded the 1956 American "rock revolution".

Presley, Perkins and Haley
have all been heard from recently; not so with Vincent. At least, not
in America. Since the success of "Be Bop-A-Lula", Vincent
has spent the majority of his time in England, doing gigs and
continually cutting records (which, somehow, have never made it over
here).


"Carl Perkins was the
first rock and roll singer. Even Elvis, you ask him, will admit it.
If you ask Bill Haley he’ll admit it as well.

WHEN DID CARL PERKINS IN
TURN INSPIRE YOU?

Well, Carl Perkins was
down South … we were all down South, actually. Carl Perkins, me,
Elvis Presley, Bill Haley was up north. Haley was into saxophones and
horns and things like that. When it all started out, they called it
rockabilly … I’ve got some Sun Records from that time here.

SO YOU STARTED OUT IN
THOSE DAYS WITH JERRY LEE LEWIS AND PERKINS AND …

No, Perkins started first.
Perkins was on his way to do the Ed Sullivan show when he hit a
tractor and wrecked his back. So they said to themselves: who can we
get to take his place? Well, they said that
there was this boy called
Elvis Presley and there’s one called Gene
Vincent. But I was in the
hospital at that time and Presley did it. On the Ed Sullivan Show.

I GUESS YOU MUST HAVE
THOUGH ABOUT WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HAD DONE THE SULLIVAN
SHOW INSTEAD OF PRESLEY.

No, not really. I’m a
singer. Listen, I never meant to make money. I never wanted it. I’m
a singer, man. When I put out a record called "Be Bop-A-Lula",
my only thought was to just make a living singing. But all of a
sudden, I was getting $1500 a night. And you take a 19-year old boy
and put him in those circumstances … I had a Cadillac and all. It
was a bad scene. It shouldn’t have happened on that first record.

AFTER "BE BOP-A-LULA"
DID THE COMPANY PUT PRESSURE ON YOU TO COME UP WITH ANOTHER QUICK
HIT? TO MAKE THEM MORE MONEY?

Hey, everybody was making
money ‘cept me. When I was 28, I got a letter from the Government
saying I was a millionaire. I wish to hell they would have told
somebody else about it … like me. I never knew about it. I never
had that money. In fact, I’ve still got about 10 checks that were
signed by my manager overseas … $10,000 or so. But I don’t care.
I just don’t care. I know it sounds silly. But … look, let them
take what they want. All I want to do is be myself and make a decent
living. Not a lot of money, mind you. I already own a lot of
property, I own a 42-foot yacht in bloody Hermosa Beach and all that
jazz. But I just want to be me!

"BE BOP-A-LULA"
MADE IT IN 1956. WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU AFTER THAT? DID YOU STILL TOUR?

Oh, yeah … sure. Before
I went to England in 1960, I played in Europe. I went to Hamburg and
met a group there. I was very impressed with them. We met and talked
a lot … that was at the Star Club … They were really good. Now
they’re called John Lennon and The Beatles. They didn’t have a
record out or nothing. God, I could have picked them up so cheaply …
which was so foolish of me. But, like I said, I’m a singer, not a
bloody business man.

WHAT MADE YOU LEAVE THE US
TO SETTLE IN ENGLAND?

The same thing that’s
making me leave now.

YOU MEAN ALL THE OTHER
FRUSTRATIONS THAT GO ALONG WITH SINGING?

No … you want to know
the truth? Well, my brother-in-law is Mickey Most. I’m married to
his wife’s sister … which is a shame. I brought my wife over here
… my ex-wife, shall we say, and she brought her parents from South
Africa, her sister, her bloody sister from Oregon and about 15
million other people – I can’t keep up with them all. And Mickey
Most laughs. I know why he laughs now. That bloody bastard.

WHAT DO YOU ATTRIBUTE THAT
TO? IS IT BECAUSE THEY HAVEN’T PROGRESSED TO THE PSYCHEDELIC STAGE?

Oh, what a charge you are.
What is all this "progressed past" jazz? Listen, you play
me one record … right there, there’s a whole bunch of them …
you play me one record that isn’t rock and roll. Now they might
play in minor chords, but it’s all rock. Pure and simple rock and
roll. And you’re not going to lose it.
People tell me I’m
making a comeback. A comeback to what? What do you want me to
comeback to? Working 350 days out of 365. No thank you. I’m too old
for that now … I’m 33 already.

BUT YOU ARE MAKING A
COMEBACK TO RECORDING … WITH AN AMERICAN PRODUCT.

Right, but I’ve been
recording steady for the past 16 years.

THEN YOU JUST WANT TO DO
GIGS, PERIOD.

Right. I’d sing for you,
right now. But as far as all these managers and everything …
Listen, let me tell you something. When I entered music, music was a
fantastic thing. It was a competition; we all competed with each
other. But since then, music has become a business … it’s more of
a competition among businessmen. You stuff things down people’s
throats, which they don’t like, and then you say: "Why is rock
and roll coming back?" Well, rock and roll is coming back
because people want the original … and, they’re going to have it.
The people want it! They’re not businessmen or anywhing … they’re
just people who enjoy the music. Here, I’m going to tell you
something which you probably don’t know about. You’ve heard about
this payola stuff that happened back in ’58? Well, they do the same
thing now. All they do is give you a Swiss number, a Swiss bank
account number. You play the record and you pick up $300 in Swiss
money.

YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT
ENGLAND?

I’m talking about here.
The USA.

WHEN "BE BOP-A-LULA"
CAME OUT AND EVERYBODY STARTED COMPARING IT – AND YOU – TO
PRESLEY, WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION?

It’s quite a funny
story. I was in the Naval Hospital, actually I was crippled up; I
just had a hit [wound] in Korea. My mother said to me: "Son, why
don’t you enter this contest?" I said, what bloody contest,
what are you talking about? She said, why don’t you record
something. So I recorded a thing that I wrote. I come in dead drunk
and stumbled over the bed. And me and Don Graves were looking at this
bloody book; it was called "Little Lulu". And I said,
"Hell, man, it’s bebopalulu." And he said, "Yeah,
man, swinging." And we wrote this song. And some man came to
hear it … named Sheriff Tex Davis, and he bought the song from
Donald Graves for $25, $25 dollars! So I recorded the song and told
all my friends that I was going to get a Cadillac; cause all rock and
roll singers had Cadillacs.
So "Be Bop-A-Lula"
came out and for three weeks nothing happened. Then some man in
Baltimore started playing it and that bloody thing hit. It went to
number 1 in every bloody place you went. But I didn’t know how to
handle a hit. I was only a child … a boy.
I went to Nashville. I
walked in the door of the Prince Albert Hotel and had on a pink suit
with a wine-coloured shirt. See, they hated me right from the start,
cause I had the number one record in town. But I didn’t know that
at the time. So I went to this big disk-jockeys’ convention in town
and a person was playing there by the name of Bill Monroe. He had a
bluegrass band. And everybody was sitting there. Then Faron Young got
up and said: "There’s this fella in town; one of these rock
and roll people who’s only going to last a year, if he lasts that
long. But by the way he sings, he won’t." And then he said:
"And there sits the boy. He might sing in a minute. His name is
Gene Vincent." And man, I snuck out that door … crawled out of
there. He brought me down so bad! So I went back to the hotel and
there was this fella sitting there in the lobby who came up to me and
said, "Excuse me, can I get your autograph?" And I said,
"Haven’t I seen you someplace before?" And he said,
"Yeah, my name’s Buddy Holly." He had out a record then
called "Blue Days, Black Nights". It was a fabulous record.
It’s like I say. We used
to all sit around … me and Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley and
Carl Perkins and we’d talk about things. If one of us had a hit,
we’d say: "That’s fabulous. It’s a damn good song."
But now, the people that I meet are so damn big headed … it’s not
music any more, it’s business. But now … I’ve met Jim Morrison
of the Doors … a fantastic person. Really a nice guy, and he takes
me back to the people I knew in the old days. Listen, a star is not a
star. We never considered ourselves that. I’m always pushing, man,
to get something better. And that’s the same with Jim and fellas
like John Sebastian.

HOW ABOUT THE EDDIE
COCHRAN ACCIDENT? YOU WERE IN THE CAR WITH HIM?

Yeah, I picked him up and
carried him 40 feet.

HOW’D THE ACCIDENT
HAPPEN?

Well, people aren’t
going to like this either, but … He had a girlfriend called Sharon
Sheeley. She said she was engaged to him, which was the biggest
goddamned lie I’d ever heard in my whole life. I never heard such a
bunch of shit in my life. Anyway, we were in England on our way to
London that night and Eddie said to me: "Gene, instead of
getting on the train and fightin’ the whole way back, going with
Sharon, why don’t we just drive?" So we hired a car. Usually I
got in first, then it was Eddie and her. But this one night, I don’t
know what happened, but she got in first, then Eddie and me. Eddie
was killed cause he was in the middle. Now there’s only one way he
could have been killed. That was throwing himself across her body.
It’s the only way! We’ve tried to figure it out. Nobody’s
really told the truth! If she’d tell the truth for a change. That
man was a good cat, man, and he’s dead.
I have a picture here, let
me show you. This was made from a small picture I’ve got. I won’t
give it to nobody because it’s mine. I treasure it as a treasured
possession. Now see the crosses there? [Showed me a photo of Cochran
with several white cross-designs scattered above Cochran’s head and
in his hair.] This was taken a day before he died. See, one of those
crosses is right in his half … taken a day before he died. God …
explain that! Can you explain the picture? Where’d the crosses come
from? As far as I knew, they weren’t there before. It’s
incredible …

DID YOU HIT ANOTHER CAR?

No … it was a
chauffeur-driven car and he hit a lamppost going about 80. Eddie went
out the door … skidded 250 yards on the back of his head. I was
thrown on the grass and had my whole left side broken up. I picked
Eddie up and carried him. When we got to the hospital I told the doc:
"I’ll give you a million dollars if you can save his life."
He said he was dying. I said "He can’t die." He said,
"Well, he is." I said "He’s not." I guess I
tried to help him too much. I had a doctor flown in by helicopter …
a brain surgeon. He operated … then Eddie died. 272 concussions
across the back of his head.
You know, his mother and
father never even called me. Never even talked to me. But that man
was like my brother. I knew him like nobody else did. They have never
even called! Eddie told me things, whispering before he died, that he
wanted to tell them. Have they called and asked me? No … I’d
gladly tell them. It’s been almost eight years. Why don’t they
ask me?
I’ll tell you why they
don’t. We had a man … we were working almost eight months on the
road. We had a man called Norm Riley. Now we had picked up almost ¼
of a million dollars on our tours … me and Eddie … and we were
leaving for Bristol that night. And Riley he … now, now do you go
about stealing ¼ of a million dollars? Can I tell you how? He
booked himself into a mental hospital, got out and collected the
money and booked himself back in. Now you can’t touch him. Who are
you going to get? The police?

HOW MUCH MONEY HAVE YOU
GONE THROUGH SINCE "BE BOP- A- LULA"?

Oh, at least 3 million
dollars. Now what have I got? It’s amazing.

HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT
ABOUT GOING INTO ANOTHER BUSINESS?

Into what? No, man … I’m
a singer. A bloody singer! It’s my living … my life.

Cet interview deja sur le forum, a deja été traduite par Pauline / rubrique TRADUCTION :
https://gene-vincent-forum.niceboard.com/click-interview-gene-vincent-f13/interview-publie-mars-1971-t1650.htm?highlight=1971

Bonne semaine

Merci, Crazytime, ça fait plaisir...

C'est à propos du différent dont parle Gene, avec Faron Young.

Ils n'ont pas été longtemps fâché, semble-t-il...



Dommage qu'il n'y ait pas de photo de la rencontre entre Gene et Buddy (à ma connaîssance).

Faron a du se rendre compte que Gene etait un vrai talent.
il n'y a que les imbeciles qui ne changent pas d'avis;