Sunday, April 24, 2005

?ris, uoy t'now niaga ti od od, lotipaC

Travis Wammack started playing guitar when he was eight and first record came out when he was twelve. He was discovered playing on a street corner by Eddie Bond and started opening up shows for Warren Smith & Carl Perkins. Soon he was backing up Charlie Feathers on drums.

In 1964, Chet Atkins chose not to release one of the greatest records EVER - "Scratchy" - because it scared him. I don't know if he listened to the B-side but I'm sure it would have scared him too. Wammack's producer, Roland Janes, let him be creative in the studio including using a playing through a drive-in movie speaker and a homemade fuzzbox made out of a tape recorder.

Wammack recorded a few more great songs but there were no hits. He became a session musician in Muscle Shoals Alabama, recording with Clarence Carter, Aretha Franklin, Bobbie Gentry, Lou Rawls, and the Osmond Brothers. Later on, Wammack spent 10 years leading Little Richard's backup band.

Travis Wammack is playing at the Ponderosa Stomp later this week. If you want to hear where I got the idea for this post, listen to this great interview with Wammack on WFMU.

2 Comments:

Blogger KS said...

Glad you like it! Be sure to listen to the WFMU interview, the whole show is worth hearing.

26/4/05 7:01 AM  
Blogger theoldroadhog said...

The show was excellent! He went NUTS on the guitar. They played all those great old instros, a few 'bluesy' numbers I could have skipped, and "Play That Funky Music, White Boy" which he sang with extreme gusto. Some people hated it but I jumped up fornt for that. Oh, and they had a tape of the backawards bit in "Scratchy." I wondered how they were going to pull that off

27/4/05 3:40 PM  

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