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Carson City Nugget Entertainers
Dick Grave's Carson Nugget was the first casino in Carson City Nevada. It was owned by Dick Graves and opened on March 6, 1954. It began offering entertainment in February 1956with the Bill Porter Band performing in their Round House Restaurant.

In March 1956, The Silver Spur casino in Carson City booked rockabilly star Rusty Draper, and in May 1956, Harrah's Lake Tahoe booked The Four Ladds, quickly followed by Louis Armstrong.

In June 1956, the Carson Nugget opened a theater-bar, featuring Turk Murphy & His San Francisco Jazz Band.

Harvey’s casino in Reno put in a new theater bar in July 1956, and the Crystal Bay Club did the same in December, with country and western star T. Texas Tyler as their first guest. Harrah’s Club continued what they had started earlier that year and booked The Ames Brothers in December. The Riverside in Reno followed and began booking big acts, such as The Mills Brothers, The Marx Brothers and the Andrew Sisters.

On September 6 1956, Dick Graves sold the Carson Nugget to Dick Abbott, his accountant, and concentrated his efforts in his new casino in Sparks, Nevada.

By the end of 1958, Harolds Club had expanded to the point it was the “world’s largest” casino and advertised heavily in Carson City. Harvey Gross dramatically expanded Harvey’s Club in Lake Tahoe and Dick Graves’ Sparks Nugget, also advertised heavily in Carson City.

Following the death of a key financial partner, Dick Abbot sold the Carson Nugget to the Adams Brothers in January 1959 for $525,000.

The Carson Nugget could not compete in size and drawing power with casinos in Reno and Lake Tahoe, but its location right in the middle offered some unique booking opportunities. With expansion, the Carson Nugget soon became important to three groups of entertainers: “Well-known entertainers” with a week or two open on their calendar; “up and comers” hoping to be discovered; and, local performers who lived in the area and made their living by performing regularly at venues in Nevada and California.

Following the opening of their first theater-bar in June 1956, the Carson Nugget expanded their theater by 768 sq. ft. in April 1960 and began booking better-known acts, such as The Newton Brothers, The Judy Lynn Show, The Roy Clark Group, Little Jimmy Dickens and Carl Perkins.

In April 1964, the Carson Nugget took up an entire city block and featured a large theater lounge, which allowed it to offer up to sixteen hours a day in entertainment. They kicked off their new lounge with The Hoosier Hotshots, and over the next ten years featured many well-known entertainers, including The Ink Spots, Bob Wills, Jay Chevalier & The Louisiana Longshots, Rose Maddox, The Grand Old Opry Show and the Fred Waring Jr. Orchestra.

In May 1975, the Carson Nugget expanded to it's present size, sitting on nearly ten acres in downtown Carson City, and again expanded its showroom. The first entertainer to perform in the new venue was Molly Bee.

Through the 1970s over 312 entertainers performed at the Carson Nugget. Sadly, many of these artists have faded from our memories. What follows is a list of all the entertainers who performed at the Carson Nugget between 1956 and 1979 with a short bio for those we can identify. Any information readers may have for the others would be greatly appreciated.

1956 Entertainment Calendar Bill Porter Band (Feb.); Turk Murphy & His San Francisco Jazz Band (June); Bernie Jones Quartette (July and Sept.); “Ragtime Bob” Darch (Aug. at Dick Grave’s Senator Club); Nick Esposito Quartette (Sept.); Lou Styles (Oct. and Nov.); Tommy Sandi Trio (Nov. and Dec.); and, The Mari Ellen Trio (Dec.).

The first entertainer at the Carson Nugget was The Bill Porter Band, who entertained guests in the Round House restaurant in February 1956. Trombonist Porter toured with the big bands of Stan Kenton, Harry James, Buddy Rich and Woody Herman. He became an arranger for Frank Sinatra and Wayne Newton and played with Sinatra’s orchestra from 1990 until Frank’s retirement. He later moved to Chicago and still plays at Green Dolphin Street every Wednesday night at 9 p.m.

In June, Dick Graves booked Turk Murphy & His San Francisco Jazz Band to open his new theater-bar. Turk Murphy was a renowned Dixieland jazz trombonist in San Francisco. He appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1959 and 1965, opened “Earthquake McGoons’ nightclub in San Francisco in 1960; and, recorded dozen of best-selling albums. He retired in 1984 and died in January 1987. When The Ormsby House opened in 1972, Murphy led the parade down Carson Street.

Dick Grave purchased the Senator Club in August 1956, and immediately booked “Ragtime Bob” Darch, the “Pied Piper of Ragtime” to play nightly. The ad said, “Acclaimed one of the ‘Only six real ragtime players in the United States today. Can you stump him? He can play any one of 5,000 ragtime tunes you can name!’”

Robert Russell “Ragtime Bob” Darch was born in 1920, at the height of ragtime’s popularity, and at 13, he was taking piano lessons from Gene Turpin, the nephew of ragtime legend Tom Turpin. When WWII broke out, Bob joined the military, but he could not get ragtime out of his mind. He purchased a “Five Peddle Cornish Upright Saloon Grand Piano” and began playing ragtime in the Red Dog Saloon in Juneau, Alaska in the early 50s. From there he moved to Virginia City, Nevada and performed regularly in Nevada. He also had his own publishing company for his original ragtime numbers, often "Musical vignettes of and about Virginia City," bearing such titles as "Delta Saloon Rag," "A Comstock Disturbance," "A Sawdust Corner Delight," and "Calico Queens." During this time, he performed in Las Vegas, at Dick Grave’s Senator Club in August 1956and he also performed at the Carson Nugget in 1957 and 1958 as part of a dance group called The Esquire Trio.

In 1959, Darch started on his journey as truly itinerant ragtime pianist that would take him around the world over the next four decades. He lived in Toronto Canada, Joplin Missouri, Fort Wayne Indiana, Carthage Missouri, and even Tombstone Arizona. He played in Norway, Sweden, Russia, Germany, Holland, Italy, and the White House. Darch even managed to get a piano onto the battlements by the Blarney Stone in Ireland. “Ragtime Bob” not only play ragtime, he lived the life. He reportedly slept on a furnace room floor in Toronto and had Wild Turkey for breakfast. Once, in Denver, Darch fell off his piano stool at 2 a.m. in Denver after 13 martinis, while singing “They’re Wearing ‘Em Higher In Hawaii”; or, singing “Good Night Little Girl Goodnight” in a Sedalia motel room and finishing with “and if I couldn’t win ya with all the booze I put in ya – good night little girl, goodnight.”

While Bob may have had fun while seeing the world, he was also a serious evangelist for ragtime. He was a tireless researcher and interviewed such ragtime pioneers as Percy Wenrich, Eubie Blake, Arthur Marshall, Joe Jordon, and Charlie Thompson. He obtained the manuscripts of James Scott’s unpublished “Calliope Rag” from one of Scott’s sisters and made them available to the public. He produced a wonderful LP in 1963 featuring Eubie Blake, Joe Jordan and Charles Thompson. He also put on concerts that brought ragtime pioneers like Eubie Blake out of retirement, and opened Club 76 in Toronto that featured ragtime legends Max Morath and Johnny (Crazy Otto) Maddox as performers.

Bob Darch was first, and foremost, a lover and performer of “real” ragtime. He once said ‘It is interesting to note that most successful ragtime composers wrote their best rags while working a saloon or sporting house…Why? The excitement: women, the modern language, the dangers, the curtain of smoke, etc. – all contributing in creating a mood that inspires the composer to put what he hears and sees into music and onto paper…Anyone who thinks Scott Joplin was inspired to write “The Entertainer” or “The Favorite” while sitting in his parlor on a Sunday night is naive…’

Lou Styles, who performed at the Carson Nugget in October and November of 1956, had recently released a Doo Wop record on Crown, “Go Daddy Go”, and was the first “rock ‘n roll artist” the Nugget booked. He went on to become the house band at the Sands in Las Vegas, and a favorite of Steve Wynn long before Wynn bought any casino in Vegas. In December 1956, the Crystal Bay Club opened their theater bar and booked country western star T. Texas Tyler, making one more venue for artists in Northern Nevada.

1957 Entertainment Calendar The Sabres (Jan.); Jan Stewart and Her Trio (Feb.); Johnny Bozie Quartet (Feb.); Beau Brummels (Mar.); The Tattle Tales (Mar.); The Four Yachtsmen (Apr.); Turk Murphy & His San Francisco Jazz Band (May); Bernie Jones Quartette (June); Nick Esposito Quartette (July); The Esquire Trio (July), Ish Kabibble Band (Aug.); King Caribe & His Steel Bandits (Sept.); The Benson Brothers & Lois (Sept.); The Allegros (Oct.); and, The Johnny Bozie Quartet (Oct.).

In 1957, the Carson Nugget continued to bring in wide variety of artists, reflecting the musical tastes of the day. In March, the Nugget booked The Beau Brummels however, they were not the San Francisco group that became famous in the 1960s, and their identity is a mystery. Sal Valentino, the lead vocalist for the famous Beau Brummels said that “as far as I know” there were “no Beau Brummels until 1964.”

In April, a folk group, The Four Yachtsmen performed for a week. They who went on to become a favorite at Disneyland in the 1960s, singing songs like “Erie Canal” and “Darlin’ Cory” from a submarine stage in Tomorrowland. In May the Nugget brought back Turk Murphy and then repeated their success in 1956 by bringing back Bernie Jones, Nick Esposito and The Esquire Trio.

The Nugget saved their biggest booking in 1957 for August, when they brought in The Ish Kabibble Band. “Ish Kabibble” was actually Merwyn Bogue (1908-1993), a notable cornet player for the Kay Kyser Orchestra from 1931 to 1951, who perfected his talents on the television quiz show Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge in 1949 and 1950, and appeared in several movies with Kyser in the early 1940s. Besides playing cornet, Merwin offered comedy relief in Kyzer’s band as “Ish Kabibble”, a moronic size-kick with oversized bowl-cut bangs and an undersized hat. “Ish Kabibble” was a Jewish term meaning “I should worry?”, and it has been widely suggested that Jerry Lewis, and later Jim Carey took much of their acts from Merwin’s character. When the big band era ended, Merwin went on the road as Ish Kabibble and the Shy Boys. He eventually went into real estate in the high desert of California, and died in Palm Desert in 1993.

1958 Entertainment Calendar Lucita & Her Combo (Mar.); The Avalons (Mar.); Carmen Le Fave Trio (Apr.); The Allegros (Apr.); Turk Murphy & His San Francisco Jazz Band (May); The Four Barons (Jun., Sept., Oct.); The Esquire Trio (Jun.); The 4 Jinks (Jun., July); the Ish Kabibble Band (Aug.); The Ho-Hums (Sept.); The Dream Dusters (Oct.); Nick Alexander & The Coquettes (Nov.); Lou Styles & The Stylists (Dec.); and, Mike Riley & The Dixie Clowns (Dec.).

In 1958, The Nugget continued to build their entertainment reputation in Northern Nevada by offering more dates and bringing back the popular Turk Murphy in May and Ish Kabibble in August. They also continued to dabble in R&B by bringing in The Avalons in March.

The Avalons were a pioneering R&B vocal group from the Tidewater area of Virginia. Their founder was Bernard Purdie, and the other members were James Dozier, George Cox, Maryland Pierce and Charles Crowley. Purdie was drafted and returned two years later to reform the group as The Chimes, later as The Four Bees, and in 1956 as The Avalons. They toured the east coast and for five years in Canada as part of the Silas Green Show, a rhythm and blues review.

The Avalons were signed by Groove Records, the R&B (read “black”) subsidary of RCA Records and released a few 45s that got decent air play, but not enough to keep their contract from getting cancelled. The Avalons split up soon after performing at the Nugget and returned to the Newport News area. Their tenor, Charles Crowley join The Five Keys and their founder, Bernard Purdie signed with The Platters. About six months after they performed at the Nugget, Unmart Records released Hearts Desire, a record they had recorded in Canada, which can be heard today on YouTube.

Dick Abbot and his partners, the new owners of the Carson Nugget, continued what Dick Graves had begun three years before, bringing in a mixture of lesser known groups and well known entertainers that were making the rounds of casinos in Northern Nevada in the 1950s. In December, Abbot sold the Nugget to Art, Hop and Howard Adams.

1959 Entertainment Calendar Lou Styles & The Stylists (Jan.); The Hi-Tones (Feb.); The Townsmen (Feb., May, Jul.); The Merrydots (Apr.); Turk Murphy & His San Francisco Jazz Band, with Pat Yankee and the boys (May); The Esquires (Jun.); The Magnetics (Sep.); The Swinging Dolls (Oct.); The Dick Rock Trio (Oct.); and, The Valentines (Nov.).

1959 was the Adams brother’s first year as owners of the Carson Nugget and they made very few changes from 1958, sprinkling in a few well-known groups among several smaller groups trying to break into casino entertainment.

Turk Murphy returned, and was joined by jazz singer Pat Yankee. Pat was orignially from Lodi but spent her teenage years touring with the likes of Ben Blue, Sophie Tucker and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson on the east coast. She returned to San Francisco and signed for five years at Goman’s “Gay ‘90s” nightclub. She joined Turk Murphy’s band at Earthquake McGoon’s for the next five years, and then formed her own band, Pat Yankee and the Sinners, who toured the Nevada casino circuit for several years.

Yankee lived in Madrid, Spain from 1972 to 1981 and performed at jazz festivals all over Europe, where she was called the “white queen of jazz.” She returned to San Francisco and performed with Turk Murphy until his death in 1987. She continued to perform at jazz festivals around the world with jazz greats Dave Brubeck, Nina Simone, Carmen McRay and Gerry Mulligan. Her signature song was To Bessie, With Love. She made several recordings on RCA and Roulette, and her last recording was Yankee Salutes Armstrong on the GHB label. Pat still lives in San Francisco and can be seen on YouTube singing Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone at her 85th birthday bash on July 21, 2012.

1960 Entertainment Calendar The 5 Barons (Jan.); the Magnetics with Reta Ellen (Jan., Feb.); The Newton Brothers (Mar., May, Aug., Oct.); the Pep-Tunes (Apr.); E Pluribus Quarto (Jun.); the Esquires (Jul.); Rudy Rodarte (Aug.); Boyer and Rossi (Oct.); and, Art and Dottie Todd (Nov.).

At the end of January 1960, the Adams’ began remodeling the Nugget, and added 768 sq ft to the casino, pushing the bar and stage further back, allowing them to bring in newer and bigger acts. On April 21 1960, the Adam Brothers had an incredible stoke of good luck by booking a couple of young brothers, Jerry and Wayne, known professionally as The Newton Brothers.

The brothers were born in Norfolk, Virginia, and while their father was in the Navy, spent their school years in Roanoke and then moved to Newark, Ohio. Wayne learned to play the piano, guitar and steel guitar at a very early age and the brothers began performing at local venues. They moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 1952 because of Wayne’s severe asthma. The brothers performed on the Rascals in Rhythm TV show; appeared on the Grand Ole Opry road shows; and, on ABC-TV’s Ozark Jubilee. They even auditioned for Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour but, like Elvis Presley, didn’t make the cut.

In 1958, during Wayne’s junior year of high school, a Las Vegas booking agent saw the brothers on a local Phoenix TV show, the Lew King Rangers Show, and signed them for two weeks. The two weeks turned into five years, with The Newton Brothers doing six shows a day in various Nevada showrooms, including five gigs at the Carson Nugget in 1960 and 1961.

The brothers split up in 1962 after entertainer Bobby Darin took them under his wing. According to Wayne, Jerry never liked show business and was relieved to be out of it. Other accounts talk of a fistfight between the brothers (that Jerry reportedly won), causing Jerry to be thrown out of the band. Whatever the truth, Wayne went solo and became the highest paid entertainer in Las Vegas history, making a reported $1-million a month by 1980.

While Jerry may have never liked show business, Wayne loved everything about it. Over the next fifteen years, Newton made millions of dollars and hundreds of friends in Las Vegas, and tried several times to own his own casino. He invested in the Shenandoah Casino in Las Vegas, but that never got off the ground. He toured a Laughlin casino, discussed building a casino in Carson City, and considered buying the Riviera. “I saw the changes going on in this town with many places doing away with dinner shows. It was different from when I first performed here when I was 15."

In September 1980, Newton made headlines when he and his long time friend Ed Torres, a former chief executive of the Riviera, announced they were buying the Aladdin Hotel and its casino (now Planet Hollywood) for $85-million. The Aladdin had closed under court order after a judge convicted four Aladdin officials in Detroit of allowing the mob to run the resort. The announcement did not go well for Newton. In October 1980, NBC News aired a report that said Newton had alleged ties to the mob. The report put Newton’s potential gaming career, as well as his life, in grave jeopardy. Other reports followed and Newton admitted he had known Guido Penosi, a reputed member of the Gambino crime family in New York, but insisted he did not know Penosi had connections to the mob. “It was ridiculous. I'm an Indian boy from Virginia, What do I know about the Mafia?" Newton told the Las Vegas Sun in an Aug. 18, 2000 story.

Newton sued NBC News for $19-million for defaming his character and won the case. He never collected the money but later said, “It was not about money, it was about clearing my name, and I did.” However, the reports kept coming about Newton’s mob ties, including one that said he was “spilling the beans” to law enforcement officials. The FBI met Newton at the Las Vegas airport when he was returning from a performance in Los Angeles and showed him a list they had obtained that showed Newton on a hit list of five people, and four of them were already dead.

Newton said he made the plunge into casino ownership because he needed a change in his life. He had headlined for 14 years and his booking agent, Walter Kane, who was like a father to him, died. “I wanted to own a casino, not operate one,” Newton told the Las Vegas Sun in a 2000 interview. “I didn’t want people coming to me because the toilets are backed up.” Torres seemed to be the perfect partner, but after twenty-one months, Newton and Torres split amid reports of constant fighting. In July 1982, Torres bought Newton out for $1.6 million in cash and a $7 million loan. Torres subsequently defaulted on numerous loans, including Wayne Newton’s loan.

In November 1983, Newton purchased the Aladdin on his own to prevent foreclosure by the Teamster’s Central States Pension Fund. The Las Vegas Sun reported the price to be an estimated $55-million, financed with a $70-million loan. Newton said owning the Aladdin “was one of the great learning experiences in my life. And I’m one of the few people who owned the Aladdin who can say we made money.” While Newton eventually got out the business of owning casinos, he stayed in Las Vegas and to date has given well over 30,000 performances at virtually every major casino in Las Vegas.

In August 1960, the Nugget brought back the Newton Brothers and added Rudy Rodarte and his group. Rudy, also known as the “Mormon Mexican”, put on a very high-energy show. He was a talented xylophone player, but best known for playing a rack of bottles like a xylophone.

The closing act for 1960 was Art & Dotty Todd, a husband and wife singing-duo who reached the Top Ten with Broken Wings in 1953 and number six with Chanson D’Amour in 1958. The success of Chanson D'Amour allowed Art and Dotty Todd to pursue their nightclub career at a higher-profile level. The debonair couple regularly played the Dunes in Las Vegas where they set a consecutive longevity record for playing one room (the Top o' the Strip) for 68 weeks (reported in Billboard magazine 27 August 1966). They moved to Honolulu in 1980 and opened their own nightclub. Dotty died in Los Angeles in 2000, at the age of 87, and Art died in Honolulu in 2007, at the age of 93.

1961 Entertainment Calendar The Gadabouts (Jul.); The San Rossi Trio (Jul.); The Dixie Partners (Aug.); The Valants (Aug.); The Sneed Family (Sept., Dec.); The Roy Clark Group (Sept.); The Judy Lynn Show (Sept.); Pat Kelly and The Shamrocks (Sept.); The Frontier Girls (Oct.); Abbie Neal and Her Ranch Girls (Oct.); The Noveltones (Nov.); The Novelords (Nov.); The Newton Brothers (Nov.); The Commodores (Dec.).

The last part of 1961 was an amazing opportunity for guests of the Carson Nugget to see some incredible musical talent. It started with The Sneed Family, a family of talented singers and musicians who gained local fame in the Pacific Northwest in the early 1950s and then spent the next decade playing virtually every venue in Nevada, including five dates at the Nugget between 1961 and 1971. Don Sneed took his sons Don Jr. and Danny on the road in the early 1950s, playing country and western all over Oregon and Washington. The group developed their craft and eventually were joined by Don’s daughter Leslie, Billy Goodman on drums and violin, and Marvin Cave on bass.

Following The Sneed Family was a new country and western act called The Roy Clark Group, featuring Roy Clark, aged 28, on guitar and vocals. Roy was a musical prodigy who won the National Banjo Championship at the age of 15 and performed on the Grand Old Opry at 17. By 1955, he was a regular on the Jimmy Dean Show, until Dean fired him for habitual tardiness. Dean told Clark “You’re the most talented person I’ve ever fired”. Roy was married in 1957 and moved to Las Vegas in 1960, where he played guitar in Hank Penny’s band and in the backing band for country and western star Wanda Jackson and her Party Timers.

The Roy Clark Group was Clark’s early try at going solo, and by the following year, he had his first album, “The Lighting Fingers of Roy Clark” on Capitol Records and soon had several top three hits. He went on to appear in five episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies as “Cousin Roy” and co-hosting the Hee Haw television show with Buck Owens from 1969 to 1971. Roy was the CMA “Comedian of the Year” in 1970; ACM “Entertainer of the Year” in 1971 and 1972; CMA “Entertainer of the Year” in 1973; and CMA “Instrumentalist of the Year” several times. He even won a Grammy in 1982 for “Best Country Instrumental Performance” for his recording of Alabama Jubilee.

Following The Roy Clark Group was another C&W star, Judy Lynn, with The Judy Lynn Show. Like Roy Clark, Judy Lynn, aged 25, was already a seasoned entertainer on the verge of hitting the big time in 1961. As a teenager, Judy had replaced Jean Shepard on a Grand Ole Opry tour with Ernest Tubb, Ferlin Husky, Red Foley and T. Texas Tyler; sung with Webb Pierce and Slim Whitman; appeared with Roy Acuff, Minnie Pearl and other stars of the Opry. At aged 16, Judy became “Queen of the Big Snake River Jamboree” as part of a show with Gene Autry; and at 18, she was “America’s Champion Girl Yodeler.” The next year she won the “Miss Idaho” contest and went on to Atlantic City to compete in the Miss America contest.

Judy moved to Nashville, married her manager, and tried to break into the country and western scene in Nashville, but could not crack the clique. In October 1959, her husband drove their station wagon to Reno and talked Harold Smith into book Judy in Harold’s Club. As Judy said, “that was when Harold’s Club was the place in all of the world.” Based on their success at Harold’s Club, her husband drove to Las Vegas and talked casino owner Bill Green into booking Judy into The Golden Nugget. She worked there for the next ten years. She then became the first country and western act to play The Strip when she moved to Caesars Palace. She worked The Flamingo for seven years and then Harrah’s for fourteen years, alternating between Reno and Lake Tahoe. Judy retired with a farewell show at John Ascuaga’s Nugget on November 15, 1980. She said she retired because of the pressure of constant performing and trying to say on top.

Judy gave an interview to Dennis Hunt a few years ago that gave a rare insight into the life of a performer. At The Golden Nugget, she said, “We worked six nights a week, a month at a time, but three nights…Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we would do six shows a night…45 minutes on, 15 off. We’d do a 45-minute show, the curtains would close, we’d run upstairs, change our costumes, come right down, do the second show, and the third…six shows a night, and… on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, we would do four shows a night….and then we rehearsed twice a week. We started out making $1,750 a week for everything; including ten musicians. We started out at the very bottom. See, nobody thought country and western would go in Nevada. That’s when we were really looked down on. Our show would come on, people would see our boots and our hats, and they would walk out.”

Regarding the pressure of staying on top, Judy went on to say, “It’s a whole new ball game, Dennis. That’s why I just had to get out. We always had a clean show. I was always on time, we were always rehearsed, well dressed…I wouldn’t even let the boys sit in their costumes. You know, I wanted it so clean and then the lyrics to country music got to be point where now there is pornography in country music. And, you can’t sing Cool Water fourteen times a night. So any way, the pressures…the egos…everybody’s trying to make themselves known…they’re trying to be bigger…and it’s unreal but…someone asked Rockefeller how much was enough money and he said “Just a little more.” You’re never contented. You always want to get bigger and bigger to where the success will just eat you up alive… to where you can’t sleep…you’re actually jealous of everybody else because you’re afraid they’re going to be bigger than you; and then if you make it on top, Dennis, then you’re afraid somebody else is going to replace you.”

Judy ended the interview by talking about the problem of egos in show business. “It’s unreal. We all have it. You spend all of your time trying to win a losing battle. And that’s why…there are two reasons why I gave up show business. Number one, I couldn’t take the pressure anymore, Dennis. And number two, I realized at thirty-six….that’s how old I was when I had a tremendous experience…you’re going to have to come down. You cannot stay on top all the time and somebody else is going to replace you, and where are you going to go? So you have to face reality and…in other words, the ‘I, Me, My and Mine-itis’. It will destroy you. So, what do you do? Do you keep fighting and fighting and fighting until you’re old, grey, and fat? No, you face reality and realize that there is a better way.” After her retirement, Judy sold her huge wardrobe of costumes, quit wearing any makeup, became a Christian minister and continued singing gospel music. She died May 26, 2010 of heart failure in Jefferson, Indiana.

Pat Kelly and the Shamrocks was one of the first, in a long line, of young rockabilly groups who had modest successes in their early career and eventually faded from our memories. Pat was born in Tulsa Oklahoma in 1939. He recorded “The Stranger Dressed in Black” at aged 18. The song received little airplay but got him a recording deal with Jubilee Records the following year. In 1958, he had better success with “Hey Doll Baby” and “Cloud 13” and began touring the country. A couple of quick 45s later received little attention. The only way to listen to Pat Kelly today is on YouTube, or by buying one of his rare 45’s on EBay.

Esther “Abbie” Neal and her group Abbie Neal and Her Ranch Girls, was born in Brookville, Pennsylvania on April 4, 1918. She mastered several instruments at an early age without lessons. By 12, she was playing fiddle for local square dances. At 18, she took formal violin lessons and was soon playing for the Du Boise symphony orchestra but she realized her love was country-western. Abbie auditioned for a new all-girl band being put together by Cowboy Phil (Reed), the Golden West Girls and was soon doing instrumental solos and vocal duets, as well as acting as the arranger and business manager for the group. She also played a comic character by the name of “Abigail Aloysius Paperwad.”

The Golden West Girls toured the Pacific on for seven months during 1945 for the USO and by 1949, had their own radio show on WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia. The group stayed together for 13 years. Abbie led another all-girl C&W group called the “Wilkens Westernaires” on Greensburg’s (PA) WHJB radio, named after her jewelry store sponsor, and soon formed Abbie Neal and Her Ranch Girls and hosted her own television show on Pittsburgh’s WENS and WDTV. Some of her shows are on YouTube, showing Abbie dressed in her western-fringed outfit and Stetson hat and projecting a kindly, maternal image with her younger band members flocking around her like chicks to a mother hen.

In 1957, Abbie had a terrible car accident that left her hospitalized for sixteen weeks. She moved to Reno in 1958 and reformed her group. She was soon headlining at most of the top casinos in Nevada, including an extended stay at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas and Harrah’s in Reno. She continued performing for the USO, including five tours through Viet Nam. Neal was married to UNR Football star Hollis “Mac” McKinnon for 27 years, until his death in 1995. Abbie died in Reno on February 15, 2004.

1962 Entertainment Calendar The Sneed Family (Jan.); Little Jimmy Dickens (Jan.); The Sunshine Boys (Jan., Feb.); The Phalens (Feb.); Billy Nichols Trio (Mar.); Fay and Lee Maynard (Mar.); The Diplomats (Apr., Nov., Dec.); The Basics (Apr.); Dusty Brown Trio (May); Ann Edwards’ Headliners (May); The Sawyer Sisters (May, Sep., Oct.); Tex Johnson (Jun,); The Co-Stars (Jun.); The Commodores (Jun., Jul.); The Cutups (Jul., Dec.); The Esquires (Aug.); Bob Hall & Cindy Layne Quartet (Sep.); The Country Gentlemen (Oct.); Ed Stacey Review (Oct.); The Modemesians (Oct.); Curly Collins and The Westerners (Nov.);

In 1962, the Nugget expanded by putting a second floor on their main building, installing a new dining room (The Sierra Room) and once again enlarged and remodeled their theater. They could not book two acts at a time. The best-known act booked in 1962 was Grand Ole Opry star Little Jimmy Dickens. He appeared in January. Jimmy was famous for his pint size (4’11”), his rhinestone-studded outfits and his humorous novelty songs.

Jimmy Dickens was singing on a radio station in Saginaw, Michigan in 1948 and discovered by Roy Acuff. Jimmy quickly signed with Columbia Records, joined the Grand Ole Opry that August, and added “Little” to his name. Jimmy recorded many novelty songs for Columbia, including “Country Boy”, “I’m little, but I’m loud”, and “Take an Old Cold Tater (and Wait)”. This last song inspired Hank Williams to nickname Jimmy “Tater.” Telling Jimmy he needed a hit, Williams penned a song in 20-minutes while they were on a tour bus. The song was “Hey Good Lookin’”, and a week later Williams recorded it himself, telling Jimmy “That song’s too good for you.”

In 1950, Jimmy was touring in Arizona and discovered Marty Robbins while performing on a TV show in Phoenix. In 1962, Jimmy released “The Violet and the Rose”, his first top ten single in twelve years”. In 1964, he became the first C&W artist to circle the globe while performing. In 1965, he released his biggest hit, “May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up your Nose”, which reached Number One on the country charts, and Number 15 on the pop charts. With the passing of Hank Locklin in March 2009, Jimmy became the oldest living member of the Grand Ole Opry at the age of 90. Jimmy was a member of the Kung-Pao Buckaroos, with George Jones and Bill Anderson, and has recorded a number of music videos with Brad Paisley. At the 2011 CMA Awards, Jimmy dressed up as Justin Bieber and made fun of Bieber’s paternity scandal. Recently, Dickens underwent radiation on his vocal cords and the hospital became inundated with “get well soon” wishes. When Jimmy saw the huge stack of cards, he said, “If these are bills, you can keep them. If they're royalty checks or cards from the best fans in the world, I couldn't be more excited or appreciative."

In May 1962, the Nugget booked two acts that were well known on the casino circuit – Ann Edwards’ Headliners and The Sawyer Sisters. Ann performed twice that year at the Nugget and The Sawyer Sisters played the Nugget five times over the next year.

Ann Edwards was a bundle of energy who headed up a versatile group called “The Headliners”, made up of Mitch Edwards, Bobby Day and Lou Garno. The show combined song, dance, instrumentals and slapstick comedy and were good enough to perform on the Ed Sullivan Show. Ann “grew up with Mel Torme as kids in Chicago, toured with Tito Guizar and won a medal on an overseas USO junket.” A typical Ann Edwards and the Headliners show would probably include Ann, in a red shimmy gown, doing an Eartha Kitt-styled interpretation of “C’est si bon”. Or, the group doing a dumb waiter number with knives, forks and a serving tray or a South American number with Ann rolling her “r’s” like Xaviar Cugat while stepping around the stage like Abby Lane.

The Sawyer Sisters, Katie, Susie and Joanie, were three vivacious, multi-talented women and a male emcee that combined singing, acting and dancing 40s and 50s music. They featured music from The Andrew Sisters, as well as nostalgic tunes from well-remembered radio shows, Broadway productions, comedic numbers, and favorite patriotic songs. They were a very popular act on the Nevada casino circuit for many years.

In October, the Nugget booked a progressive bluegrass group called The Country Gentlemen. The group formed in Washington D.C. on July 4, 1957, with Charlie Waller on guitar, John Duffey on mandolin, Eddie Adcock on banjo and Tom Gray on bass. The Country Gentlemen expanded the definition of bluegrass. They came along with the first folk music revival and not only performed classic bluegrass, but added contemporary country music and new material from artists such as Bob Dylan and Gordon Lightfoot to their act. They were exceptional singers and virtuoso instrumentalists, and gathered a dedicated following through their constant performing. The group recorded several albums, beginning with “Traveling Dobro Blues” on Starday Records in 1959, followed by three albums on Folkways, including their breakthrough “Country Songs Old & New.” They moved to Mercury Records in 1963 and recorded “Folk Session Inside”, and moved to Rebel Records in 1964. Despite several personnel changes, including Ricky Skaggs in the 1970s, they continued to perform until Charlie Waller’s death in 2004. The International Bluegrass Music Association inducted The Country Gentlemen in 1996 into their Hall of Honor.

In November, the Nugget booked another C&W pioneer act, Curley Collins and the Westerners. Curley was yet another child prodigy who began touring the back roads of the American south when he was 14, living on personal appearances at small town theaters, school auditoriums and clapboard country churches. Curley never cut a record. He represented the unsung artists who made their living from personal appearances advertised on local radio stations. For most of his career, he toured the dusty back roads and performed without the benefit of a sound system, often lit by a kerosene lamp. He knew how to cook meals by the side of the road, and often accepted lodging for adoring fans. In short, he was a pioneering country and western artist who paved the way for today’s stars of bluegrass and country music. Curley was a fiddle player, who won the National Fiddle Championship in 1938 and performed with the Old Dominion Barn Dance show and The Louisiana Hayride on radio until the middle 50s. Fittingly, Curley died almost literally with his boots on. He was playing fiddle in the band Shades of Country and became ill while preparing for the show. An ambulance rushed Curly to the hospital in Richmond Virginia on October 27, 1986, where he died. The band learned of his death just minutes before going on stage. He was 71 years old. Curley was inducted into the Old Dominion Barn Dance Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame in 1984.

1963 Entertainment Calendar Ronnie Pearson & the Ron-Dons (Jan., Mar., Jun., Aug., Oct.); Carl Perkins (Jan., Feb.); Smoky Coats & Bobby Jo-Ann (Feb.); The Diplomats (Feb., May, Jul., Aug., Sept., Dec.); The Sneed Family (Mar.); Ralph Lentz (Apr.); Harry Ranch (Apr.); The Stinson Brothers (May, Nov.); The Apollos (Jul., Nov.); The Sawyer Sisters (Jul., Aug.); Raintree County Singers (Sept.); Roberta & The Southwinds (Nov.); The Clairtones (Dec.); Jim Pierce & The Showmen Four (Dec.).

The Nugget extended their incredible run of top performers in 1963 starting with rockabilly artist Ronnie Pearson & the Ron-Dons, who had recorded some teen-age hits on Herald Records in 1957 and 1958. While Ronnie never had a big recording career, he became a very popular artist on the Nevada casino circuit and played the Nugget thirteen times from 1963 to 1966. Ronnie Pearson was a talented musician who made a living for several years by riding the wave of rockabilly popularity.

About the same time Ronnie was performing for the last time at the Nugget, he opened a nightclub in Fresno call The Place. It is reported Pearson owned several other clubs in the Fresno area, including one called the Flame or Inferno in Fresno, and Inkahoots in Clovis, and Inkahoots 2 until the late 1990s.

Certainly, late January and early February were two of the most historic weeks in the Nugget’s sixty-year history, when they booked Carl Perkins. Carl was one of the most historic rockabilly performers of all time. His number one hit, “Blue Suede Shoes”, recorded in 1955 for Sun Records, was an instant classic and sold over 1-million copies before Elvis Presley recorded it.

It would be hard to overestimate the importance to American music when talking about Carl Perkins. He was part of the Million Dollar Quartet at Sun Records in the 1950s – Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis. Perkins’ songs were recorded by the who’s who of rock and roll artists, including Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and Johnny Cash. Paul McCartney even said, “If there was no Carl Perkins, there would be no Beatles.” He is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and presented a Grammy Hall of Fame Award.

Perkins was born in 1932, the son of poor Tennessee sharecroppers who grew up hearing black Southern gospel music and Grand Ole Opry on the radio. His father made Carl his first guitar from a cigar box and a broomstick, and later bought him a used Gene Autry guitar with worn out strings. When a string broke he would fix it with a knot, making him learn to bend the stings to hit a note, rather than slide. John Westbrook, an older field hand taught him blues guitar and Carl began playing and singing country songs with the syncopated attack of the blues. Carl taught his older brother Jay to play rhythm guitar and both boys after the eighth grade to help support the family. By the time he was fourteen, Carl and Jay had their first job as entertainers at the Cotton Ball tavern just south of Jackson, Tennessee. They became the best-known act in the Jackson area, performing on local radio programs and taverns in the area. During the day, he worked at various jobs, including a mattress factory, a battery factory, and as a pan greaser for the Colonial Baking Company from 1951 to 1952.

During July 1954, Perkins and his wife heard a release from Elvis Presley of a song Carl had been playing in rural Tennessee for years, “Blue Moon of Kentucky”. Elvis would later tell Perkins he had traveled to Jackson and heard Perkins play the song a couple of years before he recorded it. Elvis was on Sun Records, a new label started by Sam Phillips. It was the first record company to fuse blues, country, R&B and gospel, and Carl went to Memphis to audition for Phillips in the summer of 1954. Phillips released Perkins performing “Turn Around”, a country ballad, on Flip Records that October. “Turn Around” received quite a bit of regional airplay and Phillips put Carl on tour with Elvis, and soon added Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Elvis left Sun in 1955 and moved to RCA, leaving Carl as Sun’s number one rocker. That same year, Perkins witnessed a dancer get angry because his date kept scuffing his shoes and wrote “Blue Suede Shoes”. The song had a massive chart success, moving quickly to number one on the pop and country charts, and even number three on the R&B charts. The “B side” of “Blue Suede Shoes” was “Honey Don’t”, later covered by The Beatles, Wanda Jackson and T. Rex.

By March 22 1956, “Shoes” had hit 500,000 in sales, and would soon hit 1-million, the first song to do so on Sun Records. While driving to New York City with is band to accept a gold record on The Perry Como Show, their Chrysler rear-end a pickup truck outside Dover, Delaware, winding up in a ditch of water about a foot deep. Carl was unconscious for an entire day and only saved from drowning by their drummer. The driver of the picked died and Carl’s brother Jay would later die of internal injuries. Carl suffered three fractured vertebrae in his neck, a severe concussion, a broken collarbone and lacerations all over his body.

While recovering back home in Jackson, Carl saw Elvis Presley sing “Blue Suede Shoes” on the Milton Berle Show, April 3 1956. While Elvis’ version of “shoes” would become more famous than Carl’s, it only hit number 20 on the Billboard pop music chart. Perkins continued performing and writing songs for Sun Records until 1958, when he moved to Columbia Records. In 1959, he wrote “Ballad of Boot Hill” for Johnny Cash, and in 1962 and 1963, he performed at The Golden Nugget in Las Vegas, as well as his performance at The Carson Nugget.

Carl, liked most of his contemporaries, was a hard drinker. While on tour with Johnny Cash in 1968, Perkins went on a four-day drunk in Tulsa, starting with a pint of Early Times. He opened for Cash in San Diego and began hallucinating after four songs. After the show, tempted by another pint while their tour bus parked by the Pacific Ocean, Carl sailed the bottle into the ocean, dropped to his knees and prayed. He never drank alcohol again. During 1968, Cash recorded Perkin’s song “Daddy Sang Bass” and scored number one on the country charts. Perkins also played lead on guitar on Cash’s hit “A Boy Named Sue”. In 1969, Carl joined Bob Dylan to record Dylan’s album “Nashville Skyline and co-wrote the lead song with Dylan.

Carl Perkins died January 19, 1998. In the end, he was satisfied with a career that never yielded a hit album. All these boys -- Elvis, Jerry Lee, Roy Orbison -- they all lost their wives, their families, Mr. Perkins said in a 1996 interview. ''People say, 'What happened to you, Carl? All of them went on to superstardom. Where'd you go?' I say, ‘I went home’, and that's a good place to be.''

Jim Pierce took to playing the piano early but did not pursue it as a career until he finished a term in the Air Force in the early 1950s, and moved back to his native Southern Oregon. In 1954, Jim took a job playing piano with a Western Swing band known as Bobby Champion & the Melody Wranglers at the Rogue River Ballroom. Jim said, “I had never played country piano before, although I heard it in the service. I didn’t know any of the songs and the bass player called chords to me to help me learn. I was with them two weeks when the owner of the place asked me if I had ever heard of Merle Travis. I said that I didn’t know who he was. Buck Smith played some of his records for me. I enjoyed them very much. Buck said I had to learn the songs, since I was expected to play some solos on the songs. I was worried because I was just learning how to play country-style piano, and I was insecure.”

The band ended up doing a ten-day tour of the Pacific Northwest with Merle. Jim said, “…the first time Merle stepped on stage I couldn’t believe it. He plugged in his guitar and kicked off the first song and the whole sound of the band changed. I can’t really describe it. When Merle played, I was in total awe. I had never heard anything like it. His records didn’t have the sound of his playing live and I realized that I was playing on the same stage with a true legend.” Merle found out that Jim was new to country music and took him under his wing. For ten days, they ate all of their meals together and talked about country music. At the end of the tour, Merle told Jim that if he kept practicing he would make it in the country music business. A few years later at Capitol Records recording session, Jim found Merle Travis tuning his guitar. Merle said to Jim, “See, I told you so.” It turned out to be one of many times that Jim would record with Merle. Jim said, “If it had not been for Merle Travis, I most likely would not have gone into country music at all.”

While still in Medford, Oregon, Jim had a television show on the only TV station in town and met nearly every C&W Star that came through the area, including Jim Reeves, Jim Ed and Maxine Brown, The Maddox Brothers with Rose, Jimmy Wakely, and Eddie Dean. He became good friends with Leo Jackson, the lead guitar player for Jim Reeves, and the two formed their own publishing company, Strawboss Music. In the late 1950s, West Coast bandleader and vocalist Chester Smith offered Jim a job as the piano player in his group. Chester had a hit in 1955 with his single “Wait A Little Longer, Please Jesus.” The band also included Del Reeves and Lee Greenwood. They played a lot of Billy Vaughn songs with twin saxophones at first, and then western swing. During this time, Bob Wills’ piano player got sick on a tour in central California and Jim played a couple of dates with Wills while still a member of Chester Smith’s group.

By 1959, Jim had become a regular in the studio scene and a staff session regular at RCA, Capitol, Republic and Challenge Records. Jim even signed with Republic Records as Jim Pierce and the Pistols, a rock group that issued instrumentals sides such as “Cajon Hop” (with Glen Campbell on guitar) and “The Peel”, featuring The Champs as his backing vocal group. Over the next few years, Jim was seemingly working 24 hours a day. He appeared regularly in Los Angeles on “Cal’s Corral” on Sunday afternoon TV. He co-owned the Nashville Nevada Club in Las Vegas. He played piano on hundreds of recording sessions with the likes of Rose Maddox, Willie Nelson, Ricky Nelson and Buck Owens. He toured Nevada with his own band (that at various times included Leon Russell and Merle Haggard as members).

By late 1963, Jim had to leave his group for a short time and recoup from exhaustion but was back playing the Nugget in January 1964. It would play the Nugget several more times over the next few years as a member of The Judy Lynn Show and the Joanie Waco Band. In 1968, Jim joined Wynn Stewart and the Tourists and toured the Southwest. In 1969, the band joined the Buck Owens Road Show. The show also included Sheb Wooley, Susan Raye, Eddie Fukano and The Hagers. He left the show after being badly injured in a car accident during a driving snowstorm in Iowa and eventually moved to Nashville, where he joined The Homesteaders, a touring group that worked with Jeanie C. Riley. In 1970, Jim joined Jim Ed Brown and played on his group on the Grand Ole Opry.

In 1971, Jim quit touring and became a session musician in Nashville. He recorded with virtually every country artist in Nashville, including Roy Drusky, Webb Pierce, Waylon Jennings and Slim Whitman. In 1973, he became a booking agent with the Bill Goodwin Agency and handled artists like Bill Anderson, Leroy Van Dyke and Roy Drusky. In 1984, Jim became a full-time record producer in Nashville and twice won the Independent Producer of the Year award by Cash Box Magazine. In the early 1990s, Jim worked with the Miami-based Playback label and produced a series of comeback records for artists like Tommy Cash and Charlie Louvin. The guest stars used for these sessions included Johnny Cash, Tom T. Hall, George Jones, Little Jimmy Dickens, Tammy Wynette, Crystal Gayle, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Melba Montgomery, Charlie Daniels and Tanya Tucker.

Today, Jim owns his own production company in Hendersonville, Tennessee and works with up and coming talent. Asked in 2004 about his 50-year career in country music, Jim said, "I've been extremely fortunate in being involved in country music all these years. It’s been a great ride, I guess some of the things we did were ground breaking but at the time we didn’t realize it; we just sort of did our thing. The creativity of the musicians and singers are continuing today and in years to come, they too will realize they have made history, just as we did back then."

1964 Entertainment Calendar The Stinson Brothers (Jan, Sep.); Mike Harris & the Charmettes (Jan.); The Clairtones (Jan.); Jim Pierce & the Showmen Four (Jan.); The Diplomats (Feb., Jun., Sep., Dec.); The Cor-Vets (Feb.); The Esquires (Mar., Oct.); Sue Flanders (Mar., Apr.); The Hoosier Hotshots (May); The Co-Stars (May, Aug.); The Judy Lynn Show (May); Suzie Arden (Jun., Nov.); Kathy Hayes & The Moodmakers (Jun.); Ronnie Pearson & The Ron Dons (Jun., Aug.); Chuck Peters (Jun. through Dec.); Johnny Leggett & The Serenaders (Jul.); The Skeeter Bon Trio (Jul.); Jack Bedient and The Chessmen (Jul.); Donna and the Knob Hill Trio (Jul.); Donna Theodore and The Coachmen (Jul.); Ann Jones and Her Western Sweethearts (Aug.); The Del Reys (Aug.); Sue Thompson & The Sneakers (Aug., Nov., Dec.); Ree Brunell & Four (Sep.); Roving Gamblers (Sep.); Saturday’s Children (Oct.); Grand Old Opry Show with Red Sovine, Shirley Raye, Stonewall Jackson, Little Jimmy Dickens, Rex Rinehart, Tennessee Valley Boys (Oct.); Joe Maize & Marty O’Conlon (Nov.)

The Stinson Brothers, a pop rock group from Rochester, Minneapolis kicked off 1964 for the Nugget. They became a favorite at the Nugget and played there five times, ending in May 1970. The four brothers were Robert Jo (“RJ”), Ronnie, Sammy and Ray. They released four albums between 1959 and 1962, including “The Stinson Brothers in Las Vegas”, and gained a large following through their talent and many television appearances. Over the years, the group appeared on The Steve Allen Show, The Milton Berle Show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and The Glenn Campbell Show. A few years ago, RJ said, “in entertainment your success is only as good as your last performance. ... Most people just see all the good times, but they don’t see all the hard work and all the pitfalls that can happen. I don’t think you ever get accustomed to the letdowns. In some ways it’s good because it makes a person tough.” The Stinson’s legacy lives on through RJ’s sons Bob Jr. and Rick, very popular entertainers known as The Stinson Brotherz, best known for their tribute show to Brooks and Dunn.

In May, the Nugget celebrated the expansion of their Sierra Room and the addition of the Cork and Bottle bar by bringing in a seasoned group of madcap musicians called The Hoosier Hotshots. They were originally a father and sons act from Arcadia, Indiana. They toured the vaudeville circuit for several years and broke up when the crash of ’29 essentially ended vaudeville. Two of the brothers, Ken and Paul Trietsh, joined other ex-vaudevillians, living off radio bookings and constantly touring. They picked up three other members and landed a job on WLS in Chicago in 1933, getting their own 5-minute radio show in the late ‘30s. Novelty songs such as “I like Bananas (Because They Have No Bones) characterized their music, but they also played the top songs of the day and were capable of playing hot jazz licks or sweet harmonies. They recorded hundreds of 78’s over the years, appeared in twenty movies, and shared billing with such stars as Gene Autry, Dale Evans, Bob Wills and Merle Travis. They also were the inspiration for other similar acts, such as Spike Jones and His City Slickers. They continued touring through much of the 1960s and appeared twice at the Carson Nugget.

Suzie Arden is actually Miriam Darden, the youngest member of the musical Darden Family, a prominent C&W, gospel, hillbilly group from the eastern part of Virginia. Suzie’s oldest brother Roy “Bear” Darden began playing music professionally as a member of the Darden Family Band in the late 1930s. Suzie grew up surrounded by music. Besides having a wonderful singing voice, she learned to play the guitar, fiddle, bass and mandolin at an early age. Suzie joined Abbie Neal and Her Ranch Girls in the 1950s and moved to Reno with the all-girl band in 1958. Suzie first played the Nugget in October 1961 as a member of that group. Suzie left the Ranch Girls in 1963 and formed her own C&W group. The Suzie Arden Show quickly became one of the most popular performers on the casino circuit. She played the Nugget eight times between June 1964 and December 1967.

Suzie is famous among 12-string guitar aficionados when she purchased the very first Rickenbacker electric 12-string prototype in 1963 and introduced the incredible sound to the world. F.C. Hall, the founder of Rickenbacker, gave the second prototype to George Harrison of the Beatles in February 1964. In fact, at one point, Suzie’s entire band played Rickenbacker guitars and bass. The Suzie Arden Show became a top attraction at The Mint in Las Vegas, and for year was the longest running C&W act in entertainment history. She had a best-selling album called “Live at the Mint” and became one of Patsy Cline’s best friends.

Suzie continued to perform in, and around Las Vegas for many years. She was married to Dr. Robert Syme and had a daughter Vicki who occasionally performed with her show at The Mint. In the 1990s, Suzie and her family returned to the family farm in Mapleton, North Carolina. She organized and played in the Darden Family Festival in 1997. The festival lasted for 14 years, and ended in 2011 after the death of his husband.

In June, the Nugget booked Jack Bedient and the Chessmen, who quickly became a favorite of guests and played the Nugget four times over the next two years, and Jack like Carson City so much he lived there for several years, using it as a base for his performances in Tahoe and Reno.

Jack Bedient and the Chessman had a small hit with a pop ballad “The Mystic One” in 1961 on ERA records, and recorded several other successful records over the next few years. By 1964, the group was living in Carson City and had a series of standing engagements in Northern Nevada that lasted for several years. Walter Hanna was the keyboardist during the 60’s and in an interview said: “I was ‘discovered’ by the Chessmen playing in a pizza parlor in Redwood City, California on their night off – they had a gig down the road at a classy night club. I played organ and an early Wurlitzer electric piano with friends from 1st year of college. We were the house band for a couple of pitchers of free beer and pizzas plus $15 per man a night playing surf music and whatever else was on the Top-40 radio, Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, Ray Charles etc. This was around “spring break” 64-65 when I dropped out of Belmont Community College and split from friends and pizza gig to grab a lucrative job offer and regular gigs with Jack and the Chessmen, $300 a week to start – big money in those days and the end of my former every-day life.

“As it turned out, this was the beginning of Jack Bedient and The Chessmen’s first real big-money success, mainly in Nevada, changing gradually from a dance-club band into more of a ‘Vegas show group’ act. As I joined and went to Nevada with them, ‘instant local stardom’ continued for nearly two years. [Manager] Bob Dee had the Chessmen lined up with good Nevada bookings: the Golden Hotel in Reno, the Silver Nugget [the Carson Nugget] nearby in Carson City, and Harvey’s Hotel and Casino just up the hill at Lake Tahoe. We soon were headlining at the Golden Hotel (later to become Harrah’s Club. We started getting airplay on recently recorded 45′s and over about a year had 4 # 1 Top-40 hits. The line at the casino hotel was so long to get in for our shows the tail of the line was near the start, going around the whole city block. It really was a mind-blower for hicks like us.

“In between some Nevada bookings, we went to Sacramento to play a couple of weeks at one of the popular local nightclubs, following Question Mark and the Mysterians, with one of our 45′s at # 16 on [Sacramento] radio… [but] the Chessmen’s popularity was not able to break out of the local area.

“The drug scene in Nevada consisted of the casino pit bosses making easily available a steady supply of Dexamyl Spansules, a great, ‘tiny-time-pill’ combination of the ‘upper’ Dexedrine and ‘downer’ Miltown (Mother’s Little Helper) which kept you wide awake without being ‘wired’ for 12-24 hours. If you weren’t near a ‘cool’ casino, the constant stream of truckers through everywhere always had something ‘speedy’ on hand. A user could stay up for days, gambling, drinking, making out, etc. Time passed quickly and popularity faded. Following a dreary dinner plus music/entertainment booking at a dead Bakersfield eatery, Bob Dee actually booked us into the Playboy Club (the “Tiger-A-Go-Go” disco?) at the S.F. airport. Part of the show was Jack Bedient backed by the house orchestra – his dream come true.

“Jack, with Bob Dee’s urging, was trying to ‘secretly’ slip away and become a single big-name artist, like Roy Orbison, Jimmy Rogers, Andy Williams, etc. Jack’s attitude towards ‘his’ musicians reflected this – we got ‘no respect’, especially drummer Jewel and I, and later Jewel’s replacement. The Chessmen were cut to a trio of Jack with Bill and Kevin – drummer and keyboard as sidemen with a cut in pay! So, Jewel, the original drummer was relegated to sideman status with a cut in pay, and so was I, just before we did the Live at Harvey’s album. Jewel quit soon after, moved to L.A. Jewel was replaced by Art – can’t recall the last name – and I stayed as a sideman for a while, needing the money, which was still pretty good, and enjoying the life-style. It’s an old story in music ‘show-biz’ – one person in a successful group is willing to dump the others, despite their hard work on the way up. That’s a different situation than being in a dead-end band moving from one subsistence gig to another. And, it’s a different situation from a long-term success combination deciding to call it quits and go their own ways – some then on to personal star status. Jack had the voice, absolutely beautiful – but, lacking strong musicianship, he needed musicians with him that knew his weaknesses and could compensate. I headed for Los Angeles into a long career of fun garage and original bands, a few ‘almost-made-it’ big rock ‘n’ roll bands, and many better-to-forget traveling club bands, always with Hollywood as home base. Reliable gossip I heard years later said Jack was working as a solo act with his guitar at Harold’s club in Reno hotel in one of their in-house bars”.

Donna Theodore and the Coachmen were a huge change in entertainment for the Nugget when they appeared at the Nugget for a week in July. Her booking was also quite a coup because during the 60s Donna appeared with the biggest entertainers of the day (Bob Hope, Bob Newhart, George Carlin, etc.), and appeared regularly on television (Dick Cavett, Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin), doing fifty appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Donna was a star in Broadway musicals during the 1970s, notably starring with Anthony Quinn in “Zorba”. She created the role of Kitty Merritt on the daytime soap Search for Tomorrow and went on to do “A Date with Judy: The Garland Years” on stages across the country. In 2004, Donna and her husband Don Edwards founded PALS, a creative arts ministry focusing on motivation and inspiration topics, and affiliated with the New Thought movement.

In August, the Nugget booked Ann Jones & Her Musical Sweethearts, called “The Kate Smith of the West”. Ann was a very prolific country western vocalist who formed one of the first all-girl country swing bands in the early 50s, The Musical Sweet -hearts, and toured with them into the 1970s.

October 1964 saw the Nugget bring in the touring Grand Ole Opry Show, starring country and western legends Red Sovine, Shirley Ray, Stonewall Jackson, Little Jimmy Dickens, Rex Rinehart, and the Tennessee Valley Boys.

The Grand Ole Opry had been groups around the country for decades, as a way of promoting the Opry and driving up record sales of their stars. The country stars in this group were “Little” Jimmy Dickens (who had already played the Nugget in June 1962) Red Sovine and Stonewall Jackson.

Sovine had a number one hit, “Why Baby Why” with Webb Pierce, in 1955 and had just recorded his first “trucker” song, “Giddy up Go”, which would go on to become the number one country song in 1965. “Red” was became best known for recording narrative songs set to music, sometimes without any singing, and had another number one hit in 1975, “Teddy Bear”. Sadly, on April 4 1980, Sovine crashed his Ford van during a heart attack, and died at age 62.

The other big star of the Opry tour was Stonewall Jackson. Stonewall moved to Nashville in 1956 and after hearing his demo tape, Wesley Rose, president of Acuff-Rose Music arranged for an audition at the Opry and Stonewall became the first artist to sign without having a recording contract. Stonewall’s first tour was with Ernest Tubb, and let to a record deal with Columbia Records. In 1958, Stonewall hit the Top 40 with a song written by a young George Jones, “Life to Go” and followed it up with “Waterloo”, which was number one for five weeks on the country charts and hit number four on the pop charts. His next number one country hit was the same year he performed at the Nugget, “B.J. and D.J.”. We went on to have thirty-five Top 40 songs.

In 2006, Stonewall sued the Grand Ole Opry for $10 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages, claiming age discrimination. As a member of the Opry for over fifty years, Jackson believed that management was sidelining him in favor of younger artists. In his court filing, Jackson claimed that Opry general manager Pete Fisher stated that he did not "want any gray hairs on that stage or in the audience, and before I'm done there won't be any." Fisher is also alleged to have told Jackson that he was "too old and too country." The lawsuit was settled on October 3, 2008 for an undisclosed amount and Jackson returned to performing on the show. He has been a member of the Opry since 1956.

Saturday's Children were a Chicago-based pop group clearly influenced by The Beatles' "Rubber Soul" era. Few bands came closer to capturing the sound of the “Fab Four.” Lead singer Jeff Boyan (aka Geoff Bryan) sung with the strength and confidence of McCartney and Lennon, and the band featured guitarist Jerry McGeorge. The Cryan Shames, Shady Daze, and a formative version of the Buckinghams recorded his songs over the years. McGeorge quit the group in late 1965 and joined the Chicago rock band The Shadows of Knight. In the summer of 1967, he joined the acid rock band H.P. Lovecraft as their bass player. When McGeorge left H.P. Lovecraft in the spring of 1968, Jeff Boyan replaced him. They released three singles on the Dunwich label and the unreleased "A Man with Money" appeared later on the retrospective compilation Early Chicago in 1971. These eight tracks are from the Sundazed double E.P. (Sundazed SEP-2 126 / 1997) and contain all their material.

Joe Maize was born Joseph A. Mazzola on June 9, 1922 in New Jersey and died December 1988 in Reno, NV. Maize was a versatile console steel guitar player, ala Alvino Rey, and like Rey, he unashamedly used his instrument for melody, percussion, and sound effects. His group was called Joe Maize and his Cordsmen, and was once described as a “cross between the Three Suns and the Three Stooges.” The group performed in nightclubs ranging from the Boulevard in New York City to the Mocambo in Hollywood, with an occasional gig at one of the hotels on Waikiki, but most of the time based in Las Vegas and Reno. The spirit of their act was not unlike that of the better-known Mary Kaye Trio, which played some of the same venues, such as the Painted Room of the Desert Inn, moving back and forth between instrumentals, vocals, and comic skits. Presenting Joe Maize and his Cordsmen is a classic Space Age Pop album, complete with the obligatory standards such as “Misirlou” and “The Third Man Theme”, lots of string wizardry by Joe, and nice jazzy accordion work.

1965 Entertainers Sue Thompson (Jan.); Johnson Brothers (Jan.); The Ink Spots (Jan.); The Bob Fair Trio (Feb., Aug.); Tommy Strange & The Features (Feb., Aug., Oct.); Sandy Knox 4 (Feb.); Jay Chevalier & the Louisiana Hotshots (Mar., Oct.); Turk Murphy (Apr.); Ronnie Pearson & the Ron Dons (Apr,); Bob Wills (May, Nov.); The Hoosier Hotshots (May); Kathy Dee & the Dee-Lightfuls (Jun.); Speedy Ross & the Rhythm Ranch Boys (Jun.); The Co-Stars (Jul., Nov., Dec.); Jennie Joy & Will Carson (Jul.); Phyllis & Bobby Sherwood (Jul.); Rose Maddox (Sep.); Billy Gray & The Nuggets (Sep.); Suzi Arden (Sep., Oct., Nov., Dec.); Jack Bedient & The Chessmen (Oct.); The Esquires (Oct., Nov.); The Lyrics (Dec.).

Performances at the Nugget in 1965 were filled with famous and near-famous names in a variety of musical styles, including country (Bob Wills, Rose Maddox, Suzie Arden), Pop (Sue Thompson, Ink Spots, Hoosier Hotshots), Rockabilly (Jay Chevalier and the Louisiana Hotshots, Tommy Strange & The Features; Ronnie Pearson & The Ron Dons), and several others.

The first new performer to the Nugget in 1965 was Sue Thompson & the Sneakers, who was also the wife of Nugget favorite Hank Penny. Sue was yet another child prodigy who was sing and playing guitar on stage by aged seven, and appeared on the “Hometown Hayride” television show in San Jose in her teens and married at seventeen. She was divorced at twenty and joined the Dude Martin band, who she married, and recorded duets with him for Mercury Records in 1950. A year later, she divorced Martin and married Hank Penny, and they hosted a TV show in Los Angeles before moving to Las Vegas and signing with Decca Records.

In 1960, Sue signed with Hickory Records and hit number five on the pop charts in 1961 with “Sad Movies (Make Me Cry”), and number three with “Norman”. Both songs sold over one million copies and awarded gold discs. In the early 60s, she had a series of minor hits and was briefly a rival of Connie Francis and Brenda Lee with the young crowd. Sue went on to perform all over Nevada, including The Golden Nugget and Show Boat casinos in Las Vegas and The Riverside in Reno. Her last Top 30 hit was “Paper Tiger” in 1965 and she returned to country with “This Is Sue Thompson Country” in 1969. She performed with country music singer Don Gibson in 1971. Sue settled in Las Vegas in the 90’s and on occasion, continues to perform.

The Original Ink Spots were an incredibly popular and influential performing group in the 1930s and 1940s, and helped define the musical genre known as R&B and Rock ‘n Roll and were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1999. The original members were Jerry Daniels, Orville “Hoppy” Jones, Jerry Daniels, Charlie Fuqua and Ivory “Deek” Watson. In 1936, Jerry Daniels was replaced by a young singer by the name of Bill Kenny and would later be credited with bring the group to worldwide success with his incredible high tenor singing voice.

During the 1940s, the group totaled well over 30 hits on the U.S. pop charts and appeared on countless radio shows and in several films. Charlie Fuqua was drafted in 1943 and Hoppy Jones died suddenly during a performance in late 1944. Bill Kenny and Deek Watson began feuding, leading to the group’s fragmentation in 1945, when Watson went on to form a group called the Brown Dots, which later became the 4 Tunes. Charlie Fuqua left the service in 1945 and returned to the group but left in 1952 to form his own separate Ink Spots group, leading to a string of lawsuits with the other members. Charlie had to change the name to “The New Ink Spots” and continued performing into the 1970s.

Starting in 1954, groups calling themselves “The Ink Spots” began springing up all over the country, using names like “The 5 Fabulous Ink Spots”, “The Famous Ink Spots”, “The Amazing Ink Spots”, “The Original Ink Spots”, and nearly 100 more. One of the most successful of these “ghost” Ink Spots groups was “Stanley Morgan’s Ink Spots, which played all over the world, including 7 times at the Nugget between January 1965 and January 1978.

Stanley Morgan’s claim to the Ink Spots was as a stand-in guitarist for Charlie Fuqua on occasion. His group was made up of drummer Buddy Redd, pianist Bill Hill, lead singer Cha-Cha Hogan, and narrator George Bledsoe. In a visit to his hometown of Milwaukee in 1980, Stanley said his group toured forty-five weeks a year, including a fifteen-week engagement at Resorts International in Las Vegas. Morgan said his favorite place to play was London. “I love London,” he said. “The audience is so appreciative. In casinos, people aren’t gonna have too much soul if they were just at the crap table and lost $2,000.” Stanley recorded an album “Stanley Morgan’s Ink Spots in London” live at the Palladium Theater which he claims sold more copies than any of the original Ink Spots recordings every sold.

In February, Tommy Strange & the Features hit the Nugget with his high-energy rock ‘n roll act. Tommy had gained many followers when he recorded the cult favorites “Nervous and Shakin’ All Over” in 1960. Tommy became a huge favorite at the Nugget and performed there seven times, ending in September 1967. Rockabilly star Jay Chevalier was once a member of Tommy Strange’s band, and followed Tommy into the Nugget the following month. Jay Chevalier & the Louisiana Hotshots achieved success in several musical genres over four decades, including country, rockabilly and Cajun. To fans outside of Louisiana, Jay known best as an early pioneer of rockabilly, but he is more famous in Louisiana for his popular, and often political songs about the state. Jay played an extended engagement at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas and in 1963, he toured with Dale & Grace when they hit number one with their song “I’m Leaving It All Up to You.” In 1963, he recorded “Come Back to Louisiana”, which was featured in the 1996 movie “Blaze”, starring Paul Newman. Jay even played a bit part in the movie. He still performs several times a year and lives in Kenner, Louisiana.

In May, the Nugget made a major step in entertainment by booking Bob Wills, the “King of Western Swing”. James Robert Wills (March 6, 1905 – May 13, 1975) was a fiddle player, songwriter, bandleader, movie performer, recording star, and universally considered the founder of Western swing. He was also the only musicians that played the Carson Nugget who had his own postage stamp. Wills was born into a large family on a cotton farm in Kosse, Texas. His father was a state fiddle champion and several of his siblings played instruments. Jim Rob learned to play the fiddle and the mandolin. He learned traditional music from his family and blues from black workers in the cotton fields. The Wills family frequently played at “ranch dances” all over Texas and New Mexico.

Wills hopped a freight train when he was 16 and drifted around the southwest for several years trying to earn a living. In his 20s he got married, attended barber school, and moved to Roy, New Mexico, then returned to Turkey, Texas to work in Hamm’s Barber Shop. For the next few years, Jim Rob alternated fiddling with barbering. He moved to Fort Worth in 1929 and continued to work as a barber during the days. At night, Wills played fiddle in medicine and minstrel shows, often playing and singing, doing comic routines in blackface, cracking jokes and doing an “amazing jig dance”.

Performing in black face was common in those days. His daughter Rosetta said “He had a lot of respect for the musicians and music of his black friends”. Wills is quoted as saying "I rode horseback from the place between the rivers to Childress [about 50 miles] to see Bessie Smith...She was about the greatest thing I had ever heard. In fact, there was no doubt about it. She was the greatest thing I ever heard.”

He formed several bands and played radio stations around the country until he formed the Texas Playboys in 1934. The band originally featured Wills on fiddle, Tommy Duncan on piano and vocals, June Whalin on rhythm guitar, Johnnie Lee Wills on tenor banjo, and Kermit Whalin on steel guitar and bass. Later Wills would add Leion McAuliffe on steel guitar, Al Stricklin on piano, Smokey Dacus on drums, and a horn section that expanded the band’s sound.

The band had great national popularity during the 1940s with such hits as "Steel Guitar Rag", "New San Antonio Rose", "Smoke on the Water", "Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima", and "New Spanish Two Step". In 1950, he had two top ten hits, "Ida Red Likes the Boogie" and "Faded Love", which were his last hits for a decade.

Like most things in life, the way things turned out were not necessarily planned. That was true of Wills’ popularity of western swing. In a 1949 interview, he was quoted as saying, “Here's the way I figure it. We [were] sure not tryin' to take credit for swingin' it…we'd pull these tunes down a set 'em in a dance category. It wouldn't be a runaway, and just lay a real nice beat behind it and the people would get to really like it. It was nobody intended to start anything in the world. We was just tryin' to find enough tunes to keep 'em dancin' to not have to repeat so much." Wills is also quoted as saying, "You can change the name of an old song, rearrange it and make it a swing." Even adding a trumpet to the band wasn’t planned.  Wills hired Everet Stover as an announcer, not knowing that Stover had played with the New Orleans symphony and directed the governor’s band in Austin.  Stover, thinking he had been hired as a trumpet player, just began joining in with the band.  That led to Zeb McNally being allowed to play his sax with the band, and with two horns in the band, they had to add a drummer.  The addition of steel guitar whiz Leon McAuliffe in March 1935 was the missing piece of the puzzle, and also gave the band a second vocalist.

By 1938, the band was doing sophisticated jazz, pop music with a blues influence, improvised scat, and wisecracking comedy from Will. They were the first band to have a lead guitar, an electric guitar and a steel guitar, and their recording of “Ida Red” served as a model for Chuck Berry’s version of the same song, a decade later, re-named “Maybellene”.

In 1939, Wills recorded a fiddle instrumental named “San Antonio Rose” and in 1940 they re-recorded it as “New San Antonio Rose” with their big swing band. The song sold a million copies and became the band’s signature song. In 1940, Wills and the Texas Playboys co-starred with Tex Ritter in the move Take Me Back to Oklahoma. Wills joined the army in 1941 and after being discharged in 1943 he moved to Hollywood, reorganized the band, and appeared in 18 more western movies, as well as appearing on radio from 12:01 to 1:00 p.m. on KMTR-AM in Los Angeles, and playing weekends at the Mission Beach Ballroom in San Diego on weekends. Wills and the band became an enormous draw in the Los Angeles area, and commanded enormous fees as well. Billboard reported that Wills out-grossed Harry James, Benny Goodman and both Dorsey brothers. They began a national tour in November 1944 and appeared on the Grand Ole Opry on December 30, 1944.

In 1945, Wills and his band moved to Fresno, California, and in 1947 they opened the Wills Point nightclub in Sacramento and continued to tour the west, as well as appearing on 50,000-watt radio broadcasts on KFBK. On April 3, 1948, Wills and the Texas Playboys appeared on the inaugural broadcast of the Louisiana Hayride on KWKH, broadcast from the Municipal Auditorium in Shreveport, Louisiana.

By the end of the 1940s, the band was playing to crowds of over 10,000 and touring constantly around the west. Wills was binge drinking and occasionally failed to show for appearances, which caused a rift with Tommy Duncan, who bore the brunt of audience anger. In the fall of 1948, Wills fired Duncan.

Wills moved back to Oklahoma in 1949, opened another club in Dallas, and continued to tour to maintain payroll for his band and clubs in Dallas and Sacramento. He turned management over to others who often ripped him off, and eventually found himself in heavy debt to the IRS. He sold his assets and faced financial ruin.

Two heart attacks, binge drinking, constant touring, bad finances, and the rise of rock and roll eventually took their toll and forced Wills to disband the band in the 1960s. Will continued to perform solo and in 1968 he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He was recording an album with Merle Haggard in 1973 when a stroke left him comatose until his death in 1975. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted Wills and the Texas Playboys in 1999.

In June, the Nugget booked Speedy Ross & the Rhythm Ranch Boys, a country group that began performing in Kentucky and performed all over North and South Dakota during the mid-1950s, then Texas, and eventually performing in the West, playing gigs all over Nevada. Speedy was the singer and rhythm guitar player, as well as the leader of the group.

Bobby Sherwood was the third (Roy Clark, Wayne Newton being the others) artist to play at the Carson Nugget who has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Bobby was born in Indianapolis Indiana in 1914 and died in Auburn Massachusetts in 1981. He had four careers during his life.

First, he was an incredible multi-instrumentalist who could play virtually every instrument in an orchestra, but known primarily as great guitar player. By age 22, Bobby was playing guitar in Bing Crosby’s act. He went on to become a studio musician at MGM and played briefly with Artie Shaw and Eddie Cantor’s bands. He was also part of the circle of musicians around a young Judy Garland’s early career, and at one time was married to Dorothy Gumm, Judy’s sister.

Bobby was also a talented bandleader who formed his own band in 1942 and led the band on some of Judy Garland’s Decca sessions. For a brief time, Kitty Kallen was his lead singer and had sung on his hit record “Moonlight Becomes You.” On the strength of his record, The Bobby Sherman Band was able to tour the country for a couple of years, but by that time acting as taking up more and more of his time.

In 1957, Bobby had a starring role as Ned Galvin, Frank Sinatra’s sidekick, in the picture “Pal Joey”, as well as one of the co-stars on the Milton Berle Show in the early days of television. In the 1960s, Bobby formed a lounge act and became a headliner with his wife Phyllis Dome in Nevada for several years. He was also a radio deejay and emcee on many radio and television shows. Bobby once said he had done “everything but deliver bird calls” in his long career. He died of complications of throat cancer in Auburn Massachusetts in 1981.

Kathy Dee was a country singer who started out singing on WWVA’s Wheeling Jamboree in the early 1960’s. She received a recording contract with Decca Records and recorded her first album, Kathy Dee – DEE-Lightful” in 1963. She toured nationally as “Kathy Dee and the Dee-Lights”. In 1967, on the recommendation of Kitty Wells and Roger Miller, country music producer Harold Daily, better known as “Pappy” Daily, teamed young guitarist “Zane Ashton” (aka Bill Aken) with Kathy. Kathy had just had a hit on United Artists, “Don’t Leave Me Lonely Too Long” but Wells and Miller felt she needed a new musical direction.

Bill Aken, called by many (including Elvis Presley) “the fixer” because of his incredible guitar work and song writing ability was a “San Joaquin Valley kid” and didn’t want to go to Nashville to work with Kathy. Kathy said she would be happy to go to California to record if it meant getting out of her musical rut. Bill Aken agreed to write, arrange and record four albums for Kathy, and release them on Capitol Records, all in the country-pop genre. The first song Kathy recorded for Aken was called “Indeed I Am.” Sadly, the day after Kathy recorded that song she had a diabetic stoke and died soon after, on November 3, 1968 at the age of 36.

Rose Maddox was a legendary country singer who played a week at the Nugget in September, and twice more, ending in February 1971. She began performing with her brothers in 1947 when she was only eleven. They appeared regularly on the Louisiana Hayride radio program and once shocked a Grand Ole Opry audience by performing with a bare midriff. When the act broke up in 1957, Rose went solo and had fourteen hits on the country music charts between 1959 and 1964, including several duets with Buck Owens. Her biggest hit, “Sing a Little Song of Heartache” reached number three on the country chart by the end of 1962. She suffered several heart attacks from the late 1960s on, but continued to perform. Her final album was “The Moon IS Rising” in 1996. Emmylou Harris once said that Rose never deserved the recognition she deserved, and Dolly Parton said she was an early influence. She died in 1998, at the age of 72, in Ashland, Oregon.

Rose told her story in “Rambling Rose: The Life and Career of Rose Maddox” to Jonny Whiteside. In the book, she said of her early childhood,"Cotton prices failed in Alabama, so we left for California, the Land of Milk and Honey... We only had $35 when we left there, and a dream of going to California. That was my mother's dream, Hitchhikin'…all of us…five kids.... The brakemen helped us get on the right trains and they got us food from the caboose. Sometimes the brakemen locked us in the boxcars and told us to be quiet.... We got to Los Angeles, California, in 1933. The Salvation Army heard there was a family coming. They didn't have enough room there, so Dad and Cal slept in jail. At least it was a place to stay. We went from L.A. up to Oakland on the freights. We lived in Pipe City. There were these huge culvert pipes and all the migrants were living inside culverts. The mayor of Pipe City gave us his pipe to stay in. My mother got tired of asking for food every day. That's when we hit the front page of the Oakland Tribune as a family come west on the freights looking for work."

1966 Entertainers Suzie Arden (Jan.); Bobby Barnett (Jan.); Toby Troy & the Avanti IV (Jan.); Bob Wills (Jan.); Jack Bedient & the Chessmen (Feb.); Rose Maddox (Feb.); The Travelers (Feb.); Ronnie Pearson & The Ron Dons (Feb., May, Jun, Oct., Nov.); Terry and The Pirates (Feb.); Tommy Strange & The Features (Mar., Sep., Oct.); The Lyrics (Mar., Jun., Dec.); Orville Couch (Mar.); The Satellites (Mar.); The Frank Clark Show (Apr.); The Nugget Go-Go Girls (Apr.); Mitch Edwards & The Headliners (Apr., May, Jul.); Jack Bedient & The Chessmen (May); The Co-Stars (Jun.); The Playboys and their Gals (Jun.); The Apollos (Aug.); The Joanie Waco Show (Aug.); The Motives (Sep.); Jay Chevalier & the Louisiana Longshots (Sep.); The Commodores (Nov.); Delasandro & Tonelli Trio (Nov.); The Hank Penny Show (Nov., Dec.).

As with previous years, 1966 saw the return of many favorite performers to the Nugget, with a sprinkling of new acts throughout the year. One of the best known of these new acts was country singer Orville Couch who performed at the Nugget during March. While Orville forgotten by most of today’s country and western fans, he did record one studio album in 1963, with two songs hitting the Billboard country music charts, “Hello Trouble.” (No.5) and “Did I Miss You?” (No.25). Orville died of leukemia in 2002.

The Joanie Waco Show played the Nugget in August, soon after Joanie married Bill Jack Saucier, the fiddler in her band. Joanie studied classical piano in New York for fourteen years, but after her parents moved to Elk Grove, California she fell in love with country western music, although she preferred country. She once said, “Regardless if people are tillers of the soil or hard working people in any category, country music is a language that the average person understands." With her expertise playing the piano and guitar, Joanie formed her own band in the 60s and played most of the major hotels and casinos in Nevada, as well as around the country, including the Grand Ole Opry.  Billy Jack Saucier was an acclaimed Grand National Fiddler, who like Joanie, began as began with classical training, but his passion for the fiddle led to a performance at the Big D Jamboree in Dallas, and eventually recording dates with Merle Haggard.

Another veteran country and western performer, Hank Penny was booked at the Nugget in November and December. Like several other artists on the Nevada circuit, Penny never received the success of fellow bandleaders Bob Wills or Spade Cooley during the late 40s and early 50s; he was ranked as one of the foremost practitioners of the Western swing sound. Over the years, Penny performed as the lead singer in several bands throughout the southern and eastern parts of the U.S., and wound up in the west on a USO tour in 1944, where he quickly became enamored with the music of Spade Cooley. In June 1948, Penny joined Cooley’s massively popular television program where he performed as a comedian best known for his backwoods character “That Plain Ol’ Country Boy”.

During his career, Penny worked with, or formed bands that included a “who’s who” of famous C&W and pop stars, including Tex Ritter, Spade Cooley, Doris Day, Jaye P. Morgan and Roy Clark. By 1954, Penny moved to Las Vegas and began a seven-year run at the Golden Nugget. He moved to Carson City in 1970 and formed a band with Thom Bresh, the son of Merle Travis. He left the band to Thom and moved to Nashville, where he was in the running to host a new television show, “Hee Haw”, but lost out to his former employee, Roy Clark. He returned to California in the mid-70s and for the most part, retired. Penny died of a heart attack on April 17, 1992.

1967 Entertainers The Diplomats (Jan., Apr. Oct.); the Fiascos plus 2 Gals (Jan., Feb., Apr.); The Commodores (Feb., Aug., Sep.); Jack “Jive” Schafer (Feb.); The Shilos (Feb., Mar., Aug. Nov.); Hank Penny (Mar.); The Terry Lee Clark Show (Apr.); The Rinky Dinks (Apr.); The Eddie Cash Show (May); The Bobby Rogers Trio (May); Tommy Butler (Jun.); The Merl Saunders Trio (Jun.); The Leland Four (Jun., Jul.); The Esquires (Jul.); The Tequila Band (Jul.); The Fiascos (Jul., Aug., Oct.); Tommy Strange (Sep.); Don Lucas (Oct., Nov.); The Bob Vickery Trio (Nov.); The Apollos (Dec.); The Tom & Chet Show (Dec.); Suzi Arden (Dec.); The Jim Shelton Trio (Dec.).

1967 was pretty much a continuation of favorite, but lesser-known, groups performing at the Nugget. The better-known new performances were Jack “Jive” Schafer and The Eddie Cash Show.

Jack “Jive” Schafer was a fine trumpeter, arranger, composed and outstanding showman and entertainer. He once said, “Somebody stuck a horn in my hand when I was eight years old and it’s been blow, blow, blow ever since.” He began playing theaters for silent movies; played vaudeville with George Burns, Jack Benny and Bob Hope; played in the Harry James band with Frank Sinatra; played lounges in Vegas; television occasionally; and, one-night-stands everywhere. When Jack heard Louis Armstrong, it blew him away. “From that moment on all I wanted to do was play music like him. Through the years, we became great pals and when he died, I broke down and cried. I rate him the finest human being who ever lived.” Jack received his nickname when his band played the same theater as Louis one night. Jack said, “We went on first, at midnight. The audience was good and I dug it. When I came off, Pops was standing in the wings and he smiled and said, "That was great, Daddy, great." I said, "No, man, you're great - I'm just a lotta jive." He said, "Yeah, but it ain't everybody that can sell that jive the way you do." After that show, we became very close friends.”

Edward Cash was born in 1941 in Memphis, Tennessee and is no relation to Johnny Cash. Like most white kids of his generation, he caught the music bug when Elvis, Carl, Jerry Lee and Johnny were putting out 45’s for Sun Records. However, the difference between “Eddie” and other teenagers around the country was Memphis. As he put it, “I grew up in a neighborhood full of kids like Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Isaac Hayes, All Green, The Stable Singers, Kay Starr, The Blackwood Brothers Quartet, Booker T & the MGs, the Willie Mitchell Band, Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs…goodness me, my head goes blank. Carl Perkins of course came from Jackson and that’s just 40-50 miles from Memphis. We had a neighborhood full of these kids who just wanted to pick and sing and be like these big stars.”

Eddie’s formed his first group in 1956, “The Mad Caps”, when he was fourteen and playing the drums. The group’s singer was arrested for stealing hubcaps just before a performance and Eddie became the singer. He sold his drums and sang for the next four decades. When Elvis traveled to LA in September 1956 to make his first movie, “Love Me Tender”, he left his guitarist, Scotty Moore, and his bass player, Bill Black, behind. They needed work and recruited Eddie to join them. Eddie’s first professional job was singing with the original Presley band. Eddie did some recording sessions at Sun, but nothing was ever released. His first record was for Peak Records, “Doing All Right” in 1958 as Eddie Cash and the Cashiers, sounding amazing like Elvis. The record got quite a bit of regional airplay, but eventually failed because Peak Records had little experience in distribution.

Eddie once gave an interview and told a story that summed up his musical career: “I called up Bill [Black] and we put a little band together, he had a drummer called Jerry Arnold, who was to be the original drummer in the Bill Black Combo, they used to call him “Satch”. “Satch” Arnold and I had a saxophone player by the name of Martin Willis who was one of the finest musicians in town. He did a lot of stuff for Sun and was with Conway [Twitty] for a time. The greatest guitar player I ever run across in my life is Reggie Young. Anyhow, we were working this ‘C&R Club’ in Truman, Arkansas and another toilet called ‘The Silver Moon’ in Newport, Arkansas. Those were jobs that we would work after school on Fridays and Saturdays. On this occasion, I called Bill and said, ‘Bill, get ready to go to the thing and I'll pick you up’, and he said, ‘We're not going’. ‘So what do you mean, you're not going? This is Wednesday we're opening at the Silver Moon Night Club in Newport, Arkansas and Friday we're making $15 dollars apiece and you ain't going’. Bill said: “No, Joe Cuoghi from Hi Records called and he's gonna give us a recording session”. I said, ‘Well, you go ahead and do your recording session and I'll organize another band and I'm going my way’. He said. ‘Ok’. So Bill went on and recorded "Smokie, Part 1 & 2" and made his first million seller and I got $15 and went on singing at the Silver Moon Night Club in Newport, Arkansas. That's a true Bill Black Story. It's a shame too that Bill's gone. He was a fine man a lot of fun and I miss him. He was a good friend.”

Eddie moved to Las Vegas in 1966 and played virtually every venue in Nevada for the next three decades. He moved to Cicero, Missouri near Branson and played The Olympic Theater for the next few years.

Merl Saunders had an amazingly diverse career. He was a virtuoso keyboard player who favored the Hammond B-3 organ. In his extraordinary career, he played with artists as varied and talented as Miles Davis, Johnny Mathis, Stan Kenton, Lionel Hampton and Jerry Garcia. Merl was a musician, a composer, a producer and an actor. He was born in San Mateo, California in 1934 and he formed his first band while attending Polytechnic High School. The band featured two singers, Johnny Mathis and Jean Turner. Johnny went on to fame and fortune as a pop singer and Jean became the first black vocalist for the Stan Kenton band.

After serving in the military from 1953-1957, Merl joined the Billy Williams Revue, just as Billy was having a huge hit with “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter”. Merl played with the Lionel Hampton band for a few years, then formed his own group and toured the Nevada circuit for a few years, including the Carson Nugget. The Merle Saunders Trio released a LP on Galaxy called “Soul Grooving” in 1968. In 1969, Merl played keyboards for Miles Davis and was the musical director for Big Time Buck White, starring Muhammad Ali. The play opened and closed on Broadway at the George Abbott Theatre in December 1969 but opened more doors for Merl. In the early 1970s, Merl wrote soundtracks for three movies: “Black Girl”, directed by Ozzie Davis and starring Brock Peters and Leslie Uggams; “Fritz the Cat”, which was the most successful independent animated film of all time, grossing over $100-million; and, “Heavy Traffic”, the critically-acclaimed follow up to “Fritz The Cat”.

In 1971, Merl moved back to the Bay Area and teamed up with Jerry Garcia to play on Tom Fogerty’s second album for Fantasy Records, Excalibur. Tom had recently left Creedence Clearwater Revival, as the rhythm guitar player and backup vocalist to his brother John. It was a happy collaboration and Merl went on to release two albums in 1972 and 1973 with Tom and Jerry. Over the next two decades, Merl played on many albums with artists such as Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, and The Grateful Dead. He led his own band as Merl Saunders and Friends, playing live dates with Garcia, as well as Mike Bloomfield, David Grisman, Michael Hinton, Tom Fogerty, Vassar Clements, Kenneth Nash, John Kahn and Sheila E. He also collaborated with Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart in the band High Noon. Merl Saunders took the lead in reintroducing Jerry Garcia to his guitar after Jerry suffered a diabetic coma in the summer of 1986. In 1990, Merl released the New Age classic album Blues from the Rainforest, collaboration with Jerry Garcia and Muruga Booker. One of the songs from Blues from the Rainforest was used as part of the soundtrack for the TV series Baywatch. Saunders continued to perform with the Rainforest Band for the next ten years.

Merl also had his own record label, Sumertone Records (named for his children Susan, Merl Jr., and Tony), and recorded on Fantasy Records, Galaxy Records and Relix Records as well as the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia labels. He worked with the Grateful Dead on the theme music for the 1985 TV show The New Twilight Zone, and as musical director, he worked with Mickey Hart on the score for the show. He also worked on the TV series Nash Bridges, and worked on several soundtracks for movies, including Fritz the Cat and Steelyard Blues. He was production coordinator for the Grammy Awards for two years, and for the Grammy's Greatest Moments TV special. In 2002, Merl suffered from a stroke that paralyzed one side of his body and curtailed his musical career. Merl Saunders died in San Francisco, California on the morning of October 24, 2008, after fighting infections as result of complications related to the 2002 stroke.

In an interview given towards the end of his life, Merl was asked for advice he would give to young musicians just starting out. Merl said, “Stay focused is all I can say. If you really stay focused, you can do it. Be prepared and know your trade inside and out. Know music. If you're going to rehearse with somebody, act like you're interested. So many kids don't stay focused. Get high on music.”

1968 Entertainers The Bob Vickery Trio (Jan.); Lu & The Kitcats (Jan.); The Hamlin 5 (Jan.); The Bob Rogers Trio (Feb.); Cass & Company (Feb.); Miss Discotheque of ’68 (Apr.); The Thespian Workshop (Apr.); Brass & Company (Jun.); Cindy Layne & Don Palmer (Jul.); Fred Waring Jr. Orchestra (Jul., Aug., Oct.); The Jerry Sun Show (Sep.); The Doug Baker Combo (Sep.); The Chorus of the Comstock (Sep.); Saint & Angel Hypnotists (Oct.); The Bob Vickery Trio (Oct.); The Country Affair (Oct.); Ronnie Kemper & His Orchestra (Nov.); Tommy Butler (Nov.); Sandy Knox (Dec.); The Topics (Dec.).
 * The Musicians Union was on strike at all Nevada casinos beginning in late February. Cass & Company joined the strike

Entertainment in 1968 started out normally in the Nugget’s show bar. There were a couple of new acts in January and Cass & Company were booked were re-booked for a second week in March, and the Nugget’s 14th Anniversary. They didn’t show up. Thanks to a strike called by the Reno Musician’s Local 386, neither did over two hundred other musicians in Northern Nevada. The issue was how musicians got paid. The casinos claimed that they paid the bandleader and they should pay their band. The union claimed that the hotel and casino owners refused to bargain on working conditions and wage scales. Casinos and hotels all over Northern Nevada had to scramble looking for non-musical acts, making comedians, disc jockeys and magicians in hot demand. Harrah’s Club at Lake Tahoe booked Bill Cosby, but its Reno club, as well as Harolds Club and the Mapes Hotel cancelled all entertainment.

The Nugget decided to team up with State Motors-Dodge and put on a series of promotions, including giving away a Dodge Charger. Cocktail waitresses wore mini-dresses furnished by Dodge that had the measurements of the waitress’ anatomy printed on the front. One waitress brought down the house when a patron asked what “34-25-34” meant and she shot back, “Its’ Carson City’s high and low temperatures!”

By early April, pickets appeared daily at the back of the Nugget, next to the loading dock, in an attempt to disrupt deliveries of food and liquor. Without entertainment, the Nugget was feeling the pinch. On April 11, they put on a modern dance revue of rock music, using a disc jockey. They called the revue Miss Discotheque of ‘68 and John McKnight was the disc jockey and emcee. The performers were a group of female dancers, choreographed by Bill Boland, a dancer from Los Angeles. The dances included The Skate, The Pony, The Shotgun, The Jerk, The Swim, The Watusi, and The Hitchhiker. Boland also came up a dance called the “A Go-Go Boog-A-Loo”. The female dancers, led by Joy Brookes, were “direct from Detroit”, with her “entourage of sparkling beauties from all over the United States.” The act featured Tonya, the “world’s biggest Boog-A-Looer” and her “one-girl chorus line.”   The whole show ended with a dance contest that got women in the audience to come up on stage and dance with Boland, and then the guys to dance with the girls.

The strike was over by the end of June and on July 2, the Nugget celebrated by installing a new dance floor in the Theatre Lounge and booking Fred Waring Jr. and his orchestra, the antithesis of “Boog-A-Loo”.

Fred Waring (June 9, 1900 – July 29, 1984) was a popular musician and bandleader of Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians for two decades before he became a radio-television personality, sometimes referred to as "America's Singing Master" and “The Man Who Taught America How to Sing.” Waring was the Lawrence Welk of his day, appearing everywhere on radio and TV and selling tens of millions of records. He was also a promoter and financial backer of the Waring “Blendor”, the first electric blender on the market.

Fred’s son Fred Jr. (June 23, 1936) was a jazz musician and trombonist who played with his father’s band at aged 19, and after serving in the Navy, toured with Woody Herman, Stan Kenton and other jazz greats before doing a stint on The Jackie Gleason Show. For much of the 60s and 70s, Fred Jr. led his own band and in the early 1980s became president of Shawnee Press, his father’s music publishing company. However, all was not as it seemed in Camelot. For much of his life, Fred Jr. was an addict, at one point drinking two quarts of gin a day while feeding a $100-a-day cocaine habit. Fred Jr. later said the burden of being the son of his “acid-tongued” father was the root of his problems. “He never wanted me to succeed,” Fred Jr. said. “He’d introduce me into friends as ‘This is Freddie. He’s failing in school. He can’t keep his pants on straight.”

Bill Waring, Fred’s brother conceded that his father “was a genius at putting you down,” But he thinks Fred junior’s problems were of his own making: "When you're a failure you blame everyone else," he told one reporter. Both Bill and his sister Dixie stopped speaking to Fred Jr. for many years... "I think the guy's sick," Bill said in 1984, "My father always bailed him out of trouble."

The fact that Fred Waring is just a hair taller than his son on the album cover “Two Sides of Fred Waring” was no accident. "Fred told Freddie (who is an inch taller) he wanted them to be the same height, so he told Freddie to take his shoes off," said the Rev. William S. Blackburn, the former Decca record executive who supervised the photo session. "But Fred kept his knees bent just a little and when the guy took the picture; Fred stood up straight. In the photo, he's just a little bit taller."

Fred Jr. was sober and clean from 1972 through 1980, and was appointed Executive Vice-President of Shawnee Music, but fired after three years by the Waring family. Fred Jr. sued his father for wrongful termination, driving the wedge with his family even deeper. The family eventually soothed over the wounds and settled the fight within the family, with Fred Sr. paying off Freddie’s debts. Fred Sr. died six months later. In September, the Nugget booked The Jerry Sun Show for what was to become nine bookings, ending in June 1980. The Jerry Sun Show was an easy jazz quartet, consisting of himself on vibraphone, Don Byington on piano, Dwayne Parks on bass, Bob Elliot on drums, and often his wife Sally Ann on vocals. Despite his talent, Jerry only released one album, “Personally Yours” in 1962, probably because he was years ahead of his time with is combination of bossa nova jazz and exotic music, played in a style popularized by artists such as Les Baxter, Stan Getz and Antonio Carlos Jobim, with his 1964 hit “The Girl from Ipanema”. Jerry played the Nevada lounge circuit for many years and in 2011, Bacchus Archives release some of his old tapes on LP and MP3 called “The Exotic Sounds of Jerry Sun.”

1969 Entertainers The Topics (Jan., Dec.); Bob Vickery Trio (Jan.); Ree Brunell & The Barons (Jan.); Marty O’Conlon (Jan.); Sandy Knox (Jan., Feb.); Charlie Blackwell Orchestra (Feb.); Glenn LeMaster* (Feb.); The Larry Price Show (Feb.); Dave Bunker Show (Feb.); Val-Aires Show (Mar.); Jerry Sun Show, with Sally Ann (Mar., Jul.); Mercer’s Merry Madcaps (Apr.); Phil Campos & The Forum (Apr., Dec.); Virgil Gifford & Country Affair (Apr., May, Sep.); Byron & Howard (May); Marty Davis & The Kountry Travelers (May); Town Pipers & Un-Randy (Jun.); Greta & Bill Quartette (Jul.); Caldwell & The Celebrities (Jul.); Jax & Jills (Aug.); The Kona Brothers (Sep.); Fun-Tastic Family (Oct.); the Chris Christianson Show (Oct.); Jack Heath & His Invisible Jacks (Nov.); Jimmie Patton, featuring Vikki Cooper (Nov.); Sandra Sennes, hypnotist (Dec.).
 * Hypnotist impersonating Abe Lincoln for Lincoln birthday

Dick Caldwell was a musician and singer from Lake Charles, Louisiana. In the late 60s he moved to Seattle and formed a classic 70s show-room band called Dick Caldwell and the Celebrities. The group consisted of Dick on saxophone and vocals; Jimmie Sommerville on drums; Billy Wells on guitar; and a girl singer, which at various times was Connie Gilger-Robinson, Ann Murphy, or Becca Lavin. The group played the showroom circuit, such as the Edgewater Inn in Seattle, Ocean Shores Inn in Ocean Shores and the Elks Club in Renton. They also played for a short time on the Nevada casino circuit and all over the western states and as far north as Edmonton, Alberta. They also did a bunch of gigs backing accordionist and entertainer Dick Contino.

Ree Brunell was a wonderful jazz vocalist who also sang traditional and Italian songs in clubs in Northern Nevada for many years. Ree was born and raised in Monterey. Her father was an Italian fisherman who loved to sing and he taught Ree songs from the old country. She worked beside her mother in the canneries cutting and packing sardines and squid. As a teenager, she would sneak out of the house at night to sing with a band at the Officers Club at Ft. Ord. “I had to sneak out of the house because my parents at first did not approve of my desire to be a singer. Italian girls don't do that sort of thing. I had to leave the area to follow my dreams but eventually my parents came around and were very, very proud of my musical career.''

Ree is convinced that wherever she goes, angels follow. They stood beside her during quintuple-bypass surgery, when she wrecked her car, and after her gall bladder burst. "I can't even tell you how many times they've given me last rites," she said. "So, whenever somebody asks how I am, I always say, 'Hey, I'm still upright!'" Upright is a good thing to be in your eighties, and Ree Brunell said she's had a lucky life — not to mention a magical career that put her in the company of many of the greats of entertainment.

People got a real musical treat when the Nugget booked Phil Campos & the Forum in April. The group was baritone Phil Campos, backed by two talented female singers, Rene Nole and Riselle Bain. The group had started out as Les Baxter’s Balladeers, a folk group and became Phil Campos & the Forum when folk singers were disappearing into the musical haze in 1967/1968. They released their first (and last) LP, “The River Is Wide” in 1967 and went on tour, primarily in Nevada. The album was co-produced, arranged and largely written by Les Baxter himself. The title song went on to be a rock classic, but unfortunately not by The Forum. The Grassroots released the song about the same time The Forum was performing at the Nugget, and they watched it quickly hit the Top 40 airwaves. The Righteous Brothers also recorded it, with a rendition that sounded much like the original version. The popularity of The Grassroots’ version is probably what led to Riselle Bain leaving the group, soon after performing in Carson City and Ree Burnell filled in for Riselle when The Forum returned to the Nugget in December. What happened to Phil Campos and the Forum is a classic example of bad timing and bad luck. They were an extremely talented group, and virtually anyone listening to their version of “The River is Wide” would agree that their version was not only the best, but also years ahead of its time. Phil Campos would later marry Rene Nole. In 2002, “The River Is Wide” album, re-released on CD (with numerous alternate takes, unreleased tracks and bonus cuts) acquainted a whole new generation of admiring followers. Unfortunately, in keeping with a life filled with bad timing, Phil died in 1987, leaving his wife Rene and four children.

Virgil Gifford & the Country Affair was a favorite country western band at the Nugget, performing sixteen weeks between April 1969 and January 1972. Virgil came to Lancaster, California from Texas as a child and was singing and playing the guitar in the Grand Ol' Opera when he was nine and starred with his band, Virgil Gifford's Country Affair, in a local television show called "Sandy's Hayride" when he was a teen-ager. He served as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army during the mid-1950s. After his discharge, he sang and played with his band throughout the country. He released “Ain’t Nobody Crying” and “Mexico Gal” on Fabor Records. Gifford's last appearance was in 1982 in Lake Tahoe and he died at a Palmdale hospital on May 3, 1991. He was only 52.

In November, the Nugget brought in Jack Heath and His Invisible Jacks, who performed every afternoon and evening, except for Thursdays and Mondays. He would continue to be a Nugget regular until 1974.

1970 Entertainers Ree Brunell & The Barons (Jan., Oct., Nov.); Jack Heath & His Invisible Jacks (Jan.); Chuck Peters (Jan.); The Shells (Jan., Feb.); The Buddy Lane Show (Feb., Mar.); The Virgil Gifford Show (Mar., May, Aug., Sep., Oct., Dec.); Tex Johnson & The Co-Stars (Apr.); The Town Pipers (Apr.); The Stinson Brothers (May); Tommy Butler (Jun); Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez (Jun.); John Smith & The Alphabetics (Jul.); Harold Cox & The Sooners (Jul., Aug.); The Joni Roth Show (Aug.); The Whittington Sisters (Sep.); The Country Gents (Sep.); Duane Lee and The Playgirls (Sep., Oct.); Doye O’Dell (Nov.); Clyde Amsler Quintet (Dec.); Bob Cawley Show with Rena Winters (Dec.).

The entertainment recipe for the 70s began pretty much like the 60s – a little bit of the future mixed into a lot of the past. Ree Brunell was back, Jack Heath and Chuck Peters continued to keep music going almost ‘round the clock, and Virgil Gifford and the Stinson Brothers returned to give country and rock lovers what they loved.

The Shells were a Doo Wop ensemble, formed in Brooklyn in 1956. The group scored a top 30 pop hit in 1957 with the song "Baby Oh Baby", released on Johnson Records. Further singles passed with little success until 1960, when producers Donn Fileti and Wayne Stierle re-issued "Baby Oh Baby"; the tune hit #21 on the US Billboard Hot 100 upon rerelease. The group issued several further singles, as well as a split LP with The Dubs in 1963. The group consisted of Nate Bouknight, Randy Shade Alston, Bobby Nurse, Danny Small, Gus Geter and Alphonse Merkman

The first real break in normal musical fare for the Nugget was Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez appearing in June. Pedro was instantly recognizable to millions of John Wayne fans as his comedy relief in many of “The Duke’s” most popular movies in the 50s and 60s, as well as acting in scores of TV parts for three decades, where he was always the stereotype “Mexican”. However, Pedro’s story was far more interesting than the characters he played. His Mexican-American father was a trumpet player in Texas, and his mother a Spanish dancer. They put all of their nine children into a traveling show call “Las Perlitas”, and Pedro quickly stole the show with natural knack for comedy. Pedro served as a driver in World War II, and soon after returning to the states, his parents retired. Pedro continued in showbiz as a standup comedian and part-time stagehand when Gracho Marx brought his show “You Bet Your Life” to San Antonio, as part of a telethon and Pedro became a contestant. He was an instant hit with Gracho, with both comedians trading quips and mugging for the camera. At one point, Gracho asked Pedro “What would we call our act, you know, if we went out together? Pedro answered, “We would have to call it ‘Gonzales, Gonzales and Marx.’ Then Gracho turned to the audience and said, “That’s a nice billing. Two people in the act, and I get third place in the billing.”

Pedro’s appearance with Gracho caught the eye of John Wayne and signed him to a contract with his production company. For the next two decades, Pedro became a stock player his Wayne’s company, appearing in such films as “The High and the Mighty” (1954); “The Wings of Eagles” (1957); “Rio Bravo” (1959); “McLintock!” (1963); “Hellfighters” (1968); and, “Chisum” (1970). The Pedro Gonzales-Gonzales that moviegoers did not see was a terrific comedian who frequently appeared on Rex Allen’s live stage show. One of his talents making musical instruments out of everyday items, such as frying pans, hubcaps and water-filled bottles.

Pedro’s was a true American story. He never finished school, or learned how to read or write, and had to have his wife read his movie scripts to him so he could memorize his lines. Pedro worked hard, lived off of his natural talents, and raised a family. When John Wayne died in the late 70s, Pedro lost his desire to perform and retired. He lived to see one of his sons become a physician and one of his grandsons, Clifton Collins Jr., become a talented actor and director. Pedro died on February 6, 2006, aged 80.

The Whittington Sisters appeared in September, a throwback to other singing sister acts, such as The Andrew Sisters and The McGuire Sisters. The Whittington sisters were Carolyn, Joyce and Diane, from Galena, Ohio. The broke into showbiz by appearing on “The Ted Mack Amateur Hour” television show in 1963. They spent the couple of decades performing around the country, including a performance with Eddie Fisher in San Quentin prison in 1972.

County music fans in Carson City got a real treat in November, with the appearance of Doye O’Dell, a well-known recording artist and performer of the day. Doye started out in Texas as a fiddler and guitar player with several regional groups and then moved to New York where he had his popular radio show, O’Dell & the Radio Rangers for five years. After the war, Doye joined the migration to California and his “Western Varieties” TV show was number one in Los Angeles in 1955-6, before “Cal Worthington’s Corral”.

Doye cut many novelty songs for the years, including “Give Me Texas”, “Bath Tub Blues” and “Lookin’ Poor but Feelin’ Rich”, but his best know song was “Blue Christmas”, which was eventually recorded by Ernest Tubb, Linda Ronstadt and Elvis Presley. Doye also wrote and recorded “Diesel Smoke, Dangerous Curves”, which was one of the hottest songs in 1952. He also made several acting appearances over the years, including movie appearances with Tex Ritter, Roy Rogers, James Garner and Ronald Reagan. He also acted in the television shows “Maverick” and “Sugarfoot”. Doye continued playing gigs all over the west until he had a stroke in 1995 and retired.

1971 Entertainers Darrell Allen & His Country Swingers (Jan.); Phil Harris Trio, featuring Ola Louisa (Jan., Feb.); Al Perry and The Country Folk (Feb.); Rose Maddox and The Will Miller Show (Feb.); The Sneed Family (Mar.); Dorene Greg (Mar., Jul.); Leon Smith and The Basics (Apr., Aug. Dec.); Virgil Gifford Show with Amy Corin (Apr., Jun., Sep., Oct., Nov.); Venus & The Baja Country Jesters (May); Gam Littledyke Show (May); The Coulter Twins & Company (Jun., Aug.); The Chozen Few (Jun., Sep.); The Jack Reeves Show (Jul., Dec.); Dennis Coats & Country Smoke (Sep.); Doyle Holly Show (Oct.); Kentucky Rhythm Pals & Abbie Neal (Nov.); Doye O’Dell and His Group (Nov.).

The first few months of 1971 featured a steady diet of country bands and singers at the Nugget. One of the more interesting was a singer from Sacramento, Ola Louise. Ola Louise Smith was born in Benson Arizona in 1926. Ola was raised in poverty but built a musical career through hard work and grit. By 1958, Ola settled in Sacramento and worked waiting tables at the El Rancho Hotel and singing with various bands in the area. She met and married Paul Westmorland, a local country singer who had written a 1945 Western swing song, “Detour (There’s a Muddy Road Ahead)” that was a big hit for Spade Cooley, and later hit Number 5 for sixteen weeks when recorded in 1951 by Patti Page.

Paul owned a roadhouse on Bell Avenue at Raley Boulevard call The Detour Inn. It featured the local country bands, and had the biggest dance floor in the Sacramento area. One of Paul’s rules was that Ola sang there almost nightly, performed on local television shows, as well as playing with bands around the area, including many of the casinos in Northern Nevada. In 1969, she signed a deal with Kapp Records that had hits with “Don’t Promise Anything”, “The Bridge on the Truckee River” and “El Gato”. She opened for Johnny Cash at the Memorial Auditorium in Sacramento and shared bills with Slim Whitman, Marty Robbins and Donna Fargo.

Ola was feisty. One frequent guest said “Big thing you had to watch out for was when a biker would start a fight…don’t worry about the bikers…watch out for Ola Louise! She’d be the first one to hoist a bar stool and come out swinging…quite a sight!” Later on in the 1970, she and Paul divorced and Ola moved back to Arizona. Although her love for country music was her passion, her love for Jesus became her life. She was a prayer warrior, highly loved in her church and community. Ola died in Los Osos, California on May 26, 2013.

Dorene Greg was a country and blue grass singer from Michigan, who performed at Buck Lake Ranch, the “Nashville of the North”. She moved to California and signed with Gene Autry’s Republic Records. Dorene did shows with Porter Wagner, Skeeter Davis, Dottie West and Ernest Tubbs over the years. She semi-retired in 2012 to Washington state, saying “…it’s not the same type of entertainment anymore. Also, not the same owners, but that was years ago.”

Leon Smith, from Eugene Oregon, is a great example of hitting it big too young, and never matching his early success again. He played guitar on his first recording session when he was 12, and put together his first band, Leon Smith and the Orbit Rockers, when he was 13. In 1958, Leon’s lifetime friend Wayne Marshall wrote a song about a drag race that had occurred on Airport Road in Eugene called “Little 40 Ford.” Leon recorded the song for his father’s Willamette Records, who sold the master to Columbia, who released it on Epic Records in 1959. The song went up the charts immediately, and became a Top 40 hit.

“I was the odd-baller, the rock ‘n’ roller in the family, Smith said. Touring with his band, the Orbit Rockers (later The Basics), Smith made his way across the country promoting his single. He played on the same stage as Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, the Coaster, and other stars, promoting his drag racing song before he was old enough to drive. Smith went on to record the songs “Once I Had a Heart”, “Honey Honey” and “Jailer Bring Me Water” before eventually hanging up his guitar in the 1970s. Smith said, “It was an awful lot of work. We’d do shows and drive 500 miles to the next one with no time off. I certainly don’t want to sound like I’m complaining though.” His only complaint is that he wasn’t savvy enough, at age 15, to fully capitalize on his early success.

Like Leon Smith, most performers cannot handle the grind of the road. They start out young, talented and enthused, and nearly all end young, talented and disillusioned. One way to perform for decades without being disillusioned is to stay local. Country singer and songwriter Garn Littledyke is a Nevada performer living in Gardnerville. While he did his share of traveling around the West, Garn spent the bulk of his time working venues in and around Northern Nevada, including many performances at Sharkey’s Nugget. In the country music world, Garn is known as a “singer’s singer”. Waylon Jennings once said “Garn’s one of the best damn ballad singers I ever heard”.

Of the hundreds who performed at the Nugget shows over the past sixty years, very few lasted long. One of those who did last was Jack Reeves. Jack Reeves not only lasted for fifty years, he also traveled all fifty states, including fourteen trips to Hawaii and twenty-two trips to Alaska. Jack was born in Arkansas, where he lived six miles from his cousin, Glenn Campbell. In 1951, his family moved to Louisiana, where he used to go to Shreveport to see the Louisiana Hayride show and got to pick a little with Webb Pierce and Slim Whitman. His family moved back to Arkansas. Jack was also into boxing and became the light heavyweight Golden Glove Champion of Arkansas in high school. That’s when he also started his own band and worked with Jim and Ed Brown, who owned a club in Pine Bluff. Jack worked the club on Friday nights in 1956, and one Saturday, the club booked Elvis Presley. Elvis was into boxing and asked Jack to travel with him and teaching him boxing. Jack’s father refused to let him go. Soon afterwards, Jack’s father died and in 1957 and he moved to California.

For the next twenty years, The Jack Reeves Show traveled primarily between California and Nevada, entertaining audiences with a combination of down-home country wit, great musicians, and impersonations of other singers, such as Elvis, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kenny Rogers, Slim Whitman and Roy Acuff. In 1974, Jack was California’s Entertainer of the Year. In the 1990s, Jack owned radio station KLUK in Laughlin, Nevada and performed regularly at the Stage Stop Saloon in Pahrump.

Dennis Coats is a country-bluegrass banjo and guitar player who performed with his band Country Smoke for a while in the 70s. He played with John Denver on this ABC TV special in 1974 and wrote songs that Denver, Mickey Gilley, John Schneider, and Doyle Holly recorded. Dennis put out a series of albums and wrote background music for many TV shows, including the Saturday Night Live and the Sopranos. Most lucrative of all, he produced over 100 radio and TV jingles and played banjo and guitar on many TV commercials, including Ford, Chevrolet, and McDonalds.

Doyle Holly was the stage name of Doyle Floyd Hendricks, who was born in 1936 and died on January 13, 2007. Doyle was best known as the bass guitar player of the country music band Buck Owens and the Buckaroos and for his solo hit songs "Queen of the Silver Dollar" and "Lila". Holly's contributions on bass guitar and rhythm guitar were a key component of the Bakersfield sound. The Buckaroos had more than 30 Top 40 singles on the country music charts in the 1960s and early 1970s, with 21 number one hits such as "I've Got a Tiger By the Tail," "Love's Gonna Live Here," and "Act Naturally." Their sound influenced later artists such as Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jackson Browne, and The Eagles.

Holly was born in Perkins, Oklahoma. He spent four years in the Army and worked in oil fields in Oklahoma, Kansas, and California. He eventually made his way to Bakersfield, California, where he discovered the country and rock music scene in the area. He began to play guitar and bass in local clubs at night while working in the oil fields during the day. In the early 1960s, Holly played with Johnny Burnette, toured the rodeo circuit with a pre-Hawaii Five-O star Jack Lord, and appeared with several country and rock bands and artists.

Doyle was playing with Joe Maphis in 1963 when he was asked by Don Rich to fill in as bassist for the Buckaroos. The spot became his permanently after Merle Haggard left the group, and the Buckaroos began their most creative and successful period, from 1963 to 1971. The group had more than 30 singles in the country music top 40 in that time, of which more than half went to No. 1. "Act Naturally," a No. 1 single for the Buckaroos in 1963, was covered by The Beatles on their 1965 album Help! Other hits included "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail," "Together Again," and "Love's Gonna Live Here," which occupied the top position on the country chart for 17 weeks near the end of 1963.

The Buckaroos recorded a live album, “Carnegie Hall Concert” in 1966, which Holly said was his favorite recording as a Buckaroo. At the time, it was only the second album recorded at Carnegie Hall by a country music group, and it is widely regarded as one of the best live albums in country music history. The fans showed up at the Carnegie Hall Concert in New York City in their tuxedos and evening gowns. The concert had been oversold and the venue was packed with fans, many sitting in the aisles. During the Carnegie Hall concert, the Buckaroos returned a favor to The Beatles and played "Twist and Shout" while wearing Beatles wigs. The Buckaroos toured widely in North America and Europe in the 1960s. During the band's peak of popularity in the mid to late 1960s, it seemed like everyone was a Buckaroos fan including the Beatles, who, it is said, had a standing order for all new Buck Owens and the Buckaroos records to be forwarded to them in England. While on tour in London in 1969, Holly, Buck Owens and Don Rich met John Lennon and Ringo Starr.

Holly recorded seven albums with The Buckaroos from 1968-1970 without Buck Owens, all of which were chart toppers. The Buckaroos albums contained instrumentals along with Holly and Don Rich sharing the role of lead vocalists, each having solo songs on every album. The band won a number of awards, including Grammys and CMAs (Country Music Awards). While Holly was with The Buckaroos they were nominated as "Band Of The Year" seven consecutive years from the Academy of Country Music from 1965 to 1971, winning the award four years in a row from 1965-1968. They were also nominated as "Instrumental Group of the Year" for five consecutive years from 1967-1971 by the Country Music Awards, winning twice in 1967 and 1968.

In 1968, Buck Owens and the Buckaroos recorded a live album when they performed at the White House for President Lyndon Johnson. They served as the house band for the American television variety show Hee Haw, and for Owens' syndicated television show, Buck Owens Ranch House, from 1966 to 1972. Holly was nominated several times as "Bass Player of the Year" award from the Academy of Country Music, and he received the award in 1970. In 1971, Holly left the Buckaroos, stating, "(I) went just as far as I could go" with the Buckaroos. He formed a band called the Vanishing Breed and signed with Andy Williams' label Barnaby Records. He recorded two albums and some of his own songs, such as "Woman Truck Drivin' Fool", "Queen of the Silver Dollar", and "Lila". Seven singles hit the country music charts, of which "Lila" made the most successful peak at No. 17 in 1973.

Holly continued to record and release singles throughout the 1970s and scored a minor hit with "A Rainbow in My Hand" and a jukebox hit "Richard and the Cadillac Kings.” Holly is honored in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame and received a block in the Walkway of Stars at the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1980.

Holly tired of life on the road in the early 1980s and opened a music store, "Doyle Holly Music" in Hendersonville, Tennessee in 1982, which he operated for nearly two decades and sold a few years before his death. He also continued to play a handful of live dates across the United States and Canada and for a time Holly even drove tour buses, for an Elton John/Billy Joel tour and for Shania Twain. In 2000 Owens, Holly, Johnny Russell, and the remaining Buckaroos (Rich died in a motorcycle accident in 1974) began to record a bluegrass-influenced album of Buckaroo hits, with Holly on vocals. The project was about two-thirds complete when Russell's health failed, and production stalled after his death soon afterward. The project was finally completed in 2003. Holly was hospitalized in December 2006 for treatment of end-stage prostate cancer. He entered a Nashville hospice in January 2007 and died on January 13 at his home in Nashville.

The Kentucky Rhythm Pals were Bob Abney and his wife Sally of Oregon. Bob was born in Illinois in 1919 and after graduating from the Navy in 1944, he married Sally Coomer of Carrier Mills, Kentucky. They moved to Corvallis Oregon where Bob completed his bachelor’s degree in biology at Oregon State University. Bob was later employed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service for 16 years, and retired in Merrill (near Klamath Falls) Oregon in 1966. After his retirement, Bob and Sally did a lot of traveling around the west, often performing music as “Bob and Sal, the Kentucky Rhythm Pals”. They performed at the Nugget in November 1971. Bob died of natural causes in Merrill on April 8, 2000 and was survived by his wife.

1972 Entertainers Virgil Gifford (Jan.); Garn Littledyke Show (Jan., May, Aug.); Muriel Bartlett & The Western Rangers (Jan.); The Joe Maize Show (Apr., Jul.); The Linda Lintz Show (Apr., Jun., Dec.); The Jack Reeves Show (May, Oct.); Harold Cox & The Sooners (Jul.); Al Perry & The Country Folk (Aug.); Marlene & The Swingin’ Dolls (Sep.); Leon Smith and The Basics (Sep., Dec.); The Chozen Few (Oct.); Toni Ingraham (Nov.); Reality (Nov.); The Tom Drury Trio (Dec.).

Toni Ingraham was born on April 3, 1947. She loved singing the popular music of the day, and right out of high school she joined bandleader Ray Anthony and became one of his “Bookends”, performing all over the country and on television. She later joined Mexican bandleader Esquivel’s band and eventually formed her own popular music group. In the 1970s, Toni discovered her love of country music and tutored in that style by Judy Lynn, right down to the elaborate western costumes, and Judy’s habit of hawking her own records after performances. Like Judy, she even headlined at The Golden Nugget in Las Vegas. Toni broke out of the Judy Lynn mold in the mid-seventies and by the mid-70’s her act was more upbeat pop than country. Toni continued to perform at varied venues all over the country for many years, and sadly pass away on August 7, 2007.

1973 Entertainers The Shillings (Jan., Jun., Jul.); The Music People (Feb.); The Bill Amick Show (Feb.); The Sunshine People (Mar.); The Betty Hillman Show (Mar.); Los Copacabana (Mar.); Freddy Powers and Powerhouse (Mar., Apr.); The Zella Lehr Show (Apr.); The Batty Matys Brothers (Apr., May); Walter Wanderley (May); Linda Lintz (May, Sept., Dec.); Lou Styles & The Stylists (Jun., Aug.); Garn Littledyke (Jun, Sep.); The Best Thing (Jul.); Dennis & Cree (Aug.); Christi & Coats Trio (Aug., Sep.); Hal Diamond and The Family Circle (Oct.); Ozark Sweethearts (Oct.); The Phil Harris Show (Oct., Nov., Dec.); R.C. Bannon (Nov.); Sherman and Leigh (Dec.).

The Nugget started 1973 with a change of pace by booking The Shillings, an Oakland California-based garage band that were signed by Fantasy Records in 1965, with “Not the Least Bit True” and “It Was My Mistake.” They hit the promotional road, playing gigs at The Whiskey A Go-Go in San Francisco, Ciro’s on Sunset Boulevard, the Pussy Cat A Go-Go in Las Vegas, and appearing on the local Las Vegas TV show, Teen Beat. Unfortunately, the record never took off and one of their members, Ron Meagher joined the Beau Brummels, and their founder, Graig Cahill was drafted and sent to Viet Nam. The band broke up and then reformed in 1968 with Graig’s discharged from the Army. They tried again to make a go of it, but hung it up in for good in 1975. The Shillings are a classic example of a very talented band, with lots of local popularity, who came close but couldn’t break through to the “big time”.

Bill Amick was a good example of the hundreds of local musicians who made a living by playing popular dance music in their local area. Bill was from the Sierras, and his band entertained primarily in venues around Sutter Creek, Jackson, Placerville and Angels Camp, with occasional trips into the world of casinos. However, Bill had a couple of claims to fame that set him apart from most local bands. During his senior year in high school and first year of college, Dave Brubeck played with Bill’s band. Fred Hall, in his book It’s about Time: The Dave Brubeck Story wrote: “In his senior year in high school, Dave recalls, “I played with Bill Amick at Sutter Creek, Jackson, Placerville, and Angels Camp – places like that. We played stock arrangements of popular tunes of the day…In his first year in college, Dave returned on weekends to pick up a dollar or two with the Amick guys. Hundreds of these little “territory” bands managed to stay alive in the dance-crazy America of the thirties. That provided good experience for any young player: a chance for seasoning, the building of confidence, and learning of all the wonderful songs that later became solid standards (as well as some terrible passing-pops).”

Bill Amick had one more claim to fame. His daughter, Mädchen Amick is an actress who got her first break playing waitress Shelly Johnson on the TV series Twin Peaks. She also appeared in several movies, including Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The Nugget went back to country with the Betty Hillman Show in March. Betty was another artist who came from a musical family. Her parents had a western band in Idaho, and taught Betty to yodel by the age of 5, and Betty and her sister Drena sang in her parent’s band all though their childhood. Betty eventually formed her own band with Rand Hillman and developed a beautiful harmony style with her sister. They were in high demand in Idaho and played for the next twelve years. They played fairs and rodeos in Idaho, toured lounges in Nevada, went on the road from Nashville to Texas, and even took a military tour in Hawaii. She released an album “We Have Love” as Betty Adel in 2007 that shows off her exceptional voice and yodeling talents.

Freddy Powers is almost certainly “the most famous artist that you never heard of” to play the Nugget. He was born in Oklahoma in 1931 and moved to Seminole Texas when he was six. His family had a small band that played Dixieland jazz for local dances. At 16, he enlisted in the Marine Corp and assigned to their Criminal Investigation Division. When he got out of the Marines, he knew he wanted to get into music but also needed to make a living, so he did what several musicians did, he went to barber school, the perfect job for going town to town and still have time for music.

In the early fifties, Freddy took guitar lessons from the famous country picker, Paul Buskirk, who introduced Freddy to another of his promising students, Willie Nelson. Freddy and Willie found that they both loved country and jazz and when Freddy started a band, Willie joined for a time as a bass player, working honky-tonks up and down the Jacksboro Highway, and playing everything from Dixieland jazz to Country Swing. It was a strange band, featuring three banjos and a tuba. The venues they played were rough, and their tuba player had to cover his tuba with a mesh screen to keep the crowds from tossing their beer bottles into the bell.

In 1955, Freddy was one of the first to record a Willie Nelson song, “Heartaches of a Fool”. The two not only shared a love of different types of music, they were also dedicated to fusing country honky-tonk with swing jazz. Freddie went on to form his band, Freddie Powers and Powerhouse and toured all over the country. He eventually moved to Nevada and played at show lounges all over the state, and appeared on the Johnny Carson show several times. Freddie’s life changed when his old friend Willie called in 1980 and wanted him to co-produce and play on his album “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”, an album of 1940 standards dedicated to gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. The album was the Number One country album of 1981, and sold more than one million copies.

One fan of the album was Merle Haggard, who called Freddy and invited him to go fishing on Lake Shasta. They soon they were kindred spirits and ended up tying their houseboats together. The experience awakened Freddie’s songwriting powers and before long he was penning some of the most famous country ballads of the last few decades. His song, “I Always Get Lucky With You” was a monster country hit in 1983, and he went on to write half of the songs on Merle’s album “It’s All In The Game” and several chart-busters for George Jones.

Freddy toured with Merle Haggard for six years and made several more television appearances, including Austin City Limits. Freddy returned to Texas, and in 2004, Merle Haggard produced Freddy’s album “My Great Escape”, even singing duets with Freddy on three cuts. Performers seldom live on in future generation’s memories, but the music does. Freddy’s music will live on with timeless classics like “I Always Get Lucky With You”, “Let’s Chase Each Other Around The Room Tonight”, “This Time I Really Do”, and “Natural High.”

You can measure the popularity of an artist by the number of times they are re-booked. That would make Zella Lehr one of the most popular singers to perform at the Nugget. She played the Nugget nine times over six years between April 1973 and November 1979. Zella was so popular she was “Northern Nevada’s Entertainer of the Year” for seven years in a row. Like so many performers, Zella virtually spent her life on stage, performing with her parents and two brothers as “The Lehr Family” from the age of seven, beginning in 1958. She became a terrific pop singer, and in her twenties, she was performing regularly on television, including the Merv Griffin Show and The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. She was even the “unicycle girl” for two years on the TV program “Hee Haw”.

From her television appearances she went on to appear in main showrooms all over Las Vegas, appearing with such acts as Wayne Newton, Sammy Davis Jr., Glen Campbell and the Statler Brothers. She relocated to Reno in the 70s and in late 1977 recorded Dolly Parton’s song “Two Doors Down”, which hit the Billboard Country charts for Zella for eighteen weeks. Zella had fifteen songs that were in the top one hundred country charts for the next nine years, including “Feedin’ the Fire”, “When the Fire Gets Hot”, “Danger, Heartbreak Ahead”, and “Once in a Blue Moon.”

Zella’s last hit was in 1985 and soon after, she moved to Boca Raton, Florida. She owned and operated “Zella Lehr’s Dinner Theater” there from 2000-2004 and is now president of ZMC Entertainment, a premier entertainment production company and talent agency in South Florida.

Harry Matys had served in the Austrian army for four years when Archduke Ferdinand was assassinate, setting of World War I. Afraid of being called back into active duty, Harry fled to Hamburg, Germany, and from there to the United States, and was soon joined by his wife Constance. The couple settled in Chester, Pennsylvania and raised a family of four boys and two girls.

Harry insisted that each of his children learn to play a musical instrument, and practice every day. The oldest child, Emil, learned to play the violin, but switched to the saxophone when his father felt he was not making enough progress. While still in high school, Emil and his brothers Walt, John and Gene, and later his sister Vera, played ethnic weddings and other engagements around the Chester area and eventually became the Batty Matys Brothers, with Emil on sax, Gene on drums, Walt on accordion, and John on bass and fiddle. Emil and Gene could play any instruments put in their hands. The quartet signed with Essex Records, and their first record, "Muskrat Ramble," released was a big rockabilly hit in 1954. By 1956, the group was part of Bill Haley's talent and booking stable and recording for Decca Records. On August 28, 1957, the Matys Brothers appeared on American Bandstand performing "Muskrat Ramble" and "Crazy Street".

In 1958, the Matys Brothers made two records for Haley's Clymax record label, one of which, "Crazy Street," co-written by Haley, became a rockabilly classic. On this song and the three others recorded for Clymax, the Matys Brothers were backed by members of Bill Haley's band, The Comets (several of their recordings were also written by members of Haley's group. Later, the Matys Brothers grew to rely on their own instrumentation. The band began returning to its Austrian roots by recording polka music for the Sunnyside and Select labels during the late 1950s and early 1960s. "Rummy Polka" was a hit for them in 1959, and the Matys Brothers scored their biggest hit in 1963, "Who Stole the Keeshka?" The Batty Matys Brothers earned their name from how they worked comedy routines into their music. Emil Matys remembers sometimes dressing like a woman to get laughs out of the audience. At other times he would wear a tiger print outfit and a big, fuzzy wig with a bone in it to mimic the popular “Ally Oop” comic strip.

The brothers tired of living life on the road, and the toll it took on their family’s lives, and settled in Elko in 1960. For the next three decades, the brothers toured the west coast, appearing at venues like The Showboat in Las Vegas, The Holiday Hotel in downtown Reno, and the Carson Nugget, but always returning to play The Commercial Hotel in Elko. After Walt and Gene died in the 1990s, Emil and John were joined by their sister Vera and played the Red Lion in Elko for three years. When John died, Emil gave up the showroom life and retired in Elko, where he had lived for 27 years.

For several years before his death in 2008, Emil served as a mentor for the jazz band at Elko High School, and his last performance was as a guest on tenor sax at the Elko High School Jazz Fest in 2008. Matys reflected on his work with the band and quoted director Walt Lovell as having once said to him: “You may not think you’re doing anything by coming in, but these kids love you. You may not be the one teaching, but they listen to you.”

In May, the Nugget booked Walter Wanderley into their show lounge. Walter was a Brazilian organist and pianist, best known for his bossa nova music. Already famous in his native country by the late 1950s, he became an internationally renowned star in the mid-1960s through his collaboration with the singer Astrud Gilberto. He recorded six albums on the Verve label between 1966 and 1968. Three of those albums, Rainforest, Cheganca and Astrud Gilberto's A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness, were with a trio consisting of Wanderley, Claudio Slon (drums) and Jose Marino (bass) and were produced in the United States by Creed Taylor, who initially brought the trio to the U.S. to record at the persuasion of Tony Bennett. Wanderley's U.S. recording of Summer Samba reached No. 26 on the Billboard charts in the summer of 1966. Another album recorded during that period was Popcorn, in collaboration with the Brazilian singer-guitarist Luiz Henrique Rosa. After the trio disbanded (though they were briefly reunited in 1971 for "The Return of the Original" on Canyon Records), Wanderley himself continued to record albums on Verve, A&M/CTI, and GNP Crescendo. During that time, he also made numerous personal appearances, including a concert tour of Mexico.

Wanderley, known for his distinctive staccato stuttering style and mastery of the Hammond B-3 organ, struggled with alcoholism in his later life and died in relative obscurity of cancer in 1986 in San Francisco.

R.C. Bannon was the professional name of Dannie Shipley. Dannie was born in Dallas, Texas in 1945 and sang and played guitar in several rock bands during the 1950s and into the 1960s, when his family moved to Seattle. Donnie continued to perform in nightclubs around Seattle, and eventually became a disc jockey, taking the name “R.C. Bannon”. During his Seattle days, his band opened for Marty Robbins and Marty encouraged him to move to Nashville.

Dannie resisted the move to Nashville, and instead tried to make it in the California-Nevada market, which included his appearance at the Nugget in November 1973. He signed a recording contract with Capitol Records, but nothing was released. Finally, in 1976, Dannie moved to Nashville, where he performed at various venues around town. He eventually met Harlan Sander and signed a songwriter’s contract. He wrote songs recorded by Marty Robbins and Ronnie Milsap, including the number one hit “Only One Love in My Life”.

“R.C.” signed a recording contract with Columbia Records in 1977, “R.C. Bannon Arrives”, and three of the songs on that album hit the country charts, including “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” at Number 33. By 1979, “R.C.” married Louise Mandrell. The two recorded five duet albums between 1979 and 1982. Their song “Reunited” hit Number 13 on the country charts. He co-wrote (with John Bettis) a hit for Barbara Mandrell, “One of a Kind, Pair of Fools”. He continued to perform as a musician in Mandrell’s hit TV show Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters, even after divorcing Louise in 1991.

1974 Entertainers Sherman and Leigh (Jan.); Jack Heath (Jan., Feb.); Country Chateaux (Mar.); Al Vegod and Jerry Moors (Mar.); Skip Foreman Show (Apr.); Marty Davis (Apr., Nov.); Junie Gay Show (May); The Bobby Dan Show (May); The Dave Bunker Show (Jun.); The Guy Nelson Show (Aug., Dec.); Harold Cox & His Sooners (Aug.); The Steve Paolo Show (Aug., Sep.); The Chris Christianson Show (Sep.); Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown (Sep., Oct., Dec.); Celia & The Golden Goodies (Oct.); Two Lads and Dad (Oct.); The Phil Harris Show (Nov., Dec.); The Wendel Adkins Show (Dec.); The Common People (Dec.).

Between September 1974 and February 1975, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown performed five weeks at the Nugget, and by the end, he absolutely “owned” it. Clarence was born in Vinton, Louisiana and raised in Orange, Texas. He began playing drums and tagged with the name “Gatemouth” by a high school teacher who said he had a “voice like a gate”. While attending a T-Bone Walker concert at Dan Robey’s Bronze Peacock nightclub in Houston, Walker became ill and Clarence took up his guitar and quickly wrote and performed “Gatemouth Boogie”, to the delight of the audience. Robey founded Peacock Records in 1949 in order to showcase Brown’s virtuoso guitar work and over the next ten years, released a string of pioneering records featuring Clarence. “Gatemouth” moved to Nashville in the 1960s, where he stuck up a friendship with Roy Clark, and eventually made several appearances on the TV show Hee Haw with Clark.

In the early 70s, American music, especially the blues, was very popular, and beginning in 1971, Clarence toured Europe twelve times during the next decade and developed a large following. He also became an official ambassador for American music and participated in several tours sponsored by the U.S. State Department, including an extensive tour of Eastern Africa. Brown appeared at the 1973 Montreux Jazz Festival, where he jammed with American blues rock band Canned Heat. In 1974, he recorded as a sideman with the New Orleans pianist Professor Longhair on his album, Rock 'N' Roll Gumbo (originally a Blue Star Records release). He moved to New Orleans in the late 1970s.

In 1979, through his manager at the time, Jim Halsey, Brown embarked on a 6-week, 44 concert tour of the Soviet Union. This was an historic event as it marked the first time the Soviet Union made a contract with a U.S. private citizen (Jim Halsey) as regards a musical tour. All previous tours were under the auspices of the U.S. State Department. To date, this was by far the most extensive tour an American band had taken in the USSR. In the 1980s, Clarence toured extensively and internationally, usually playing between 250 and 300 shows a year. He won a Grammy in 1983 for the album “Alright Again!” and was nominated for five more. “Alright Again!” is credited with putting Brown back on the musical map. He also won eight WC Handy Awards. In 1999, Brown was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. In his last few years, he maintained a full touring schedule, including Australia, New Zealand, South America, Africa and Eastern Europe. His final record "Timeless" was released in 2004.

In September 2004, Brown was diagnosed with lung cancer. Already suffering from emphysema and heart disease, he and his doctors decided to forgo treatment. In 2005, his home in Slidell, Louisiana was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and he was evacuated to his childhood home town of Orange, Texas, where he died on September 10, 2005 at the apartment of a niece, at the age of 81.

Another artist who capitalized on the popularity of American music in Europe is Wendel Adkins, who played the Nugget in December. Wendel was born in Kentucky in 1946, raised in Ohio, played organ in a rock band as a teenager, and moved to Nashville to hit the “big time”, but as is often the story, poor management stifled his talent. In Nashville, a Las Vegas club owner spotted Adkins and encouraged him to move west. Adkins was a tall, good-looking singer who sounded like Waylon Jennings without trying. For the next two years, he played showrooms all over Las Vegas, including the Golden Nugget Willie Nelson took in one of Wendel’s show in Las Vegas and asked him to come to Texas. They left the next day. Wendel toured with Willie for some time and cut his first album, “The Sundowner” on the Hitsville label. He started playing Whiskey River, Willie’s club in Dallas, and recorded his album “Live from Whiskey River” there in 1979.

Wendel met David Allan Coe at Whiskey River and his band toured with Coe for a couple of years, and followed that up touring with George Jones. In the early 80s, Adkins’ band was also the house band at Mickey Gilley’s club in Fort Worth for several years and recorded his album “Live from Gilley’s” there in 1983.

In the early 2000s, Wendel did a tour of Europe and found that he was enormously popular there, especially in the Scandinavian countries. Adkins eventually settled in Nashville yet continues to perform in Europe on a regular basis.

1975 Entertainers Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown (Jan., Feb.); Marty Davis (Feb., Mar.); Larry Trider Show (Mar., Apr.); Country Cowboys (Apr.); Eddie Fukano (Apr.); Jim Baughman Show with Linda Henson and featuring Tigar Bell (Apr., May); Molly Bee (May); The Gemini Show (May); The Danny Holder Show (May); The James Canyon Band (May, Jun., Jul); Helen Long & The Longshots (Jun.); The Kimberly’s (Jun., Jul., Nov., Dec.); Phil Harris Trio (Jun., Jul., Aug., Sep., Dec.); Jim Snyder Show, featuring Tiger Bell (Jul.); The Country Cowboys (Aug.); Family Portrait (Sep.); Family Portrait (Sep.); Sugar ‘n Spice (Sep., Oct.); The Claude Gray Show (Oct.); The Hallmarks (Nov.); The Jerry Lander Show (Nov.); Zella Lehr (Dec.); Celia & The Golden Goodies (Dec.).

Teenagers who grew up in the 1950s had only heard the music of their parents through 1954. The hits that year were “Goodnight Irene” by Gordon Jenkins and The Weavers, “Mona Lisa” by Nat King Cole, “Music, Music, Music” by Teresa Brewer, “Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy” by Red Foley, and “Simple Melody” by Bing and Gary Crosby.

All popular music changed forever in 1955 when Bill Haley & His Comets’ song “Rock Around The Clock” played over the opening credits in the movie “Blackboard Jungle”. The moment was earth shattering for every teenage in the country and instantly ended the dominance of jazz and pop standards that had a stranglehold on popular music for decades. Hundreds of thousands of teenagers immediately wanted to be “rockabilly” stars and thousands of them began forming bands. That was especially true in the flat land of West Texas after a couple of kids from the region, Charles “Buddy” Holly of Lubbock, and Roy Orbison of Wink, hit it big in 1956.

Why West Texas was such a hot bed of rockabilly is hard to understand. Orbison described Wink, Texas as "football, oil fields, oil, grease and sand". It might have something to do with boredom, desolation and the wind. It certainly had something to do with their love of country music. Whatever it was, West Texas was the birthplace of hundreds of singers and pickers besides Holly and Orbison, including Guy Clark, Mac Davis, Lefty Frizzell, the Gatlin Brothers, Waylon Jennings, Buddy Knox, Delbert McClinton, Stevie Nicks, Jeannie C. Riley, J.D. Souther, Ernest Tubb, Tanya Tucker, Seals & Crofts, and on and on. The one thing they all did was get out as soon as they had a chance.

One of the better examples of a very good country rockabilly singer and picker from West Texas was Larry Trider, who performed at the Nugget in March and April 1975. Larry was from Lazbuddie, “just up the road a piece from Muleshoe”, and began performing in and around Lubbock, first as a member of The Crickets, Buddy Holly group, who continued to perform after Buddy’s death, and later with his own group Larry Trider and the Nomads.

A tribute to Larry’s talent was that The George Soares Agency, one of the most progressive booking agencies on the West Coast, signed him as their first country artist and sent him on a four year, forty-two state tour, including several gigs at The Golden Nugget in Las Vegas. Larry also released several 45’s on Roulette and Coral records in the 60s, including “I’m Comin’ Home”, written by Charlie Rich, “Don’t Stop” and “Carbon Copy”. None of the records became hits and Larry eventually returned to Lubbock and became the house band at the Red Raider Inn through much of the 1980s. Somewhere in the mid-1980s, Larry disappeared from the music scene and last spotted in the late 80s in Las Vegas working for a drapery hanging business, where he told a friend he was making more money doing that than he ever did in the music business.

Eddie Fukano was a musical arranger and composer in Japan who came to the United States in 1968 at the request of pop bandleader Billy Vaughn to become his arranger. Eddie was also a talented musician and country music lover in his own right. He formed his own band in the early 70s, signed with Dot records, and traveled the country playing small venues, bigger casino showrooms, and even made television appearances on Hee Haw and The Buck Owens Show. Eddie booked a show in Seattle in 1974 and never left. Other than a few shows in 1975, including the Nugget, Eddie quit touring and became a music educator.

At aged 12, Tigar Bell was the youngest artist to perform at the Nugget, and certainly one of the most talented. Tigar played the Nugget in April and May as a featured member of The Jim Baughman Show, and returned in July, when he was featured with The Jim Snyder Show. Tigar began playing fiddle at 8 years old. Three months later, he won his first fiddle contest, and three months after that he joined Merle Haggard and the Strangers as a featured fiddler. He was with Merle for three years. Tigar joined some other groups playing the casino circuit (including his two gigs at the Nugget, as well as with Rose Maddox), and about age sixteen he formed his own band and toured the U.S. and Canada for fourteen years. In the early 1990s, Tigar moved to Nashville and in 1993, he began playing fiddle and guitar in Ricky Van Shelton’s band, a job he held off and on until Ricky’s retirement in 2006. Today, Tigar works as a composer, producer and songwriter in Nashville.

Following their practice of booking major starts to celebrate major expansions, the Adams brothers brought recording/television star Molly Bee to the Nugget in April 1975. Molly had been a recording star since she was a 13 and recorded “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” in 1952, and starred as Pinky Lee’s sidekick on The Pinky Lee Show children’s show.

Molly Bee was actually Molly Beachboard, and she was discovered in Tucson Arizona by Rex Allen, the “singing cowboy”, then a disc jockey in Tucson. Rex had 10-year old Molly sing “Lovesick Blues” on his popular radio program. The next year, the family moved to Los Angeles and Molly became a regular on Hometown Jamboree on KTLA-TV. Molly’s popularity on the show led to her casting on The Pinky Lee Show and her recording contract with Capitol Records. In 1954, while a student at Hollywood High, she joined Tennessee Ernie Ford on his daytime variety show on NBC-TV, which ran from January 1955 to June 1957. Molly continued to record for Capitol, made regular appearances on The Jimmy Dean Show, and Swingin’ Country with Roy Clark and Rusty Draper. By the time she was 19, Molly had traveled the world, including appearances with Bob Hope’s USO tour, and headlined at major casinos in Las Vegas.

Molly’s career faded in the 1960s with the popularity of rock ‘n roll. She blamed it on drug abuse. In the 1970s, Molly began a comeback by playing small country bars and venues, often with her daughters, and in 1975, she released Good Golly Ms. Molly on Cliffie Stone’s Granite record label. Molly was married at least five times and called herself “the Zsa Gabor of the country music set.” In the 1990s she owned a restaurant and night club in Oceanside, California known as The Molly Bee. She was quoted as having said, "I've done it all, and lived to tell about it". She remembered working with "incredible people and always into where the action was. I wouldn't trade it for the world." "Mine has been like six lifetimes rolled into one.” She died of complications of a stroke on February 7, 2009.

Claude Gray was born January 26, 1932 in Henderson, Texas and became a country singer-songwriter and guitar picker best known for his 1960 hit "Family Bible," which has been covered by many different artists. He stands 6'5" and because of his height, was given the moniker, "The Tall Texan."

Gray started his singing career while attending High School in his hometown of Henderson, Texas. After school, he served in the United States Navy from 1950 to 1954. Upon his return to home, he worked as a salesman for the rest of the decade. He began a recording career in 1959, after working as a radio announcer in Kilgore, Texas, and performing as a disc jockey in Meridian, Mississippi.

Gray was approached by D records in 1959, and recorded "I'm Not Supposed," which was released as his first single. The song made the Cashbox country charts. The following year, Gray and two friends purchased the song "Family Bible" from Willie Nelson for $100. Gray then recorded the song, and released it as a single." It peaked at No. 10 on the country charts. In 1961, "I'll Just Have a Cup of Coffee (Then I'll Go)," was released, which peaked at No. 4, and was followed by the biggest hit of Gray's career, the No. 3 "My Ears Should Burn (When Fools Are Talked About)," which was penned by Roger Miller. Gray's final top ten hit came in 1967 with "I Never Had the One I Wanted," which was also his final charted song upon re-release in 1979.

Gray recorded two albums for Mercury (“Broken Love Affairs” in 1961 and “Country Goes to Town” in 1962). In 1986, he released a cover of Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline." He switched to Decca in 1967 and released “Claude Gray Sings” that year, followed by the album “Easy Way” in 1968.

Helen Long & The Longshots was an all girl country western band that played the Nevada circuit during the 1970s and featured Helen Long on vocals and guitar, Marsh Nichols on guitar, Linda Buzzard on steel and Kathy York on drums and vocals. Unfortunately, the band broke up after Marsha died in a car accident between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, not long after appearing at the Carson Nugget.

The Kimberlys were twin sisters from Kimberley, British Columbia who married two brothers from Oklahoma and formed a quartet called The Kimberlys. They toured the country for several years, and for a couple of years teamed with Henson Cargill. Henson went on to fame with his song “Skip A Rope” in 1968. In 1969, they won a Grammy from the Academy of Country Music for “Top Vocal Group”. That same year, Waylon Jennings was seeking a wider, folk-oriented audience and recorded an album called “Waylon Jennings and The Kimberlys: Country-Folk”. They won another Grammy for Best Duo or Group for their cover of Jimmy Webb’s “MacArthur Park” from that album. The Kimberlys continued performing for many years, including the Nugget in 1975 and 1976.

Jerry Ladner and the Travelers was a country music guitarist who had a minor hit with his 45 “Give Me Your Love/My One Desire” on Flame records. He was inducted into the Colorado Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999.

1976 Entertainers The Kimberlys (Jan.); the Phil Harris Show (Jan., Feb.); the Ink Spots (Feb., Dec.); the Jerry Ladner Show (Feb., May); Sugar ‘n Spice (Mar., Jul., Nov.); the Midnight Flyers (Mar.); the Faith O’Hara Show (Mar., Jun.); Celia & The Golden Goodies (Apr., Jun., Jul.); Sierra (Apr.); Ted Hanson & The Country Express (Apr., May); Cathy O’Shea (Apr., May, Sep.); Mark Glenn & The Young Sisters (May); Southwind (May); The Zella Lehr Show (Jun., Nov., Dec.); The Hallmarks (Jun., Jul.); The Kenny Vernon Show (Jul., Oct., Nov.); Four Tunes Plus One (Aug., Sep.); The Dave Bunker Show (Aug.); April Ames (Aug., Sep.); Fawn (Sep.); Big Tiny Little (Dec.).

In March, the Carson Nugget booked a country singer named Faith O’Hara. She had several songs released as demos to radio stations by Columbia Records in 1975 and 1976, but she never was picked up as a recording artist. She can be seen today singing “Crazy” on YouTube.

Ted Hanson and the Country Express played the Nugget in April and May. Ted graduated from high school in Wenatchee, Washington in 1958, and after a brief stint working for Boeing, he joined the Air Force and became an air traffic controller. Ted was stationed at Larson Air Force Base in Moses Lake, California and began playing in a band with Gordon Ohme. After leaving the Air Force, Ted formed a band called Ted Hanson & the Country Express, and spent the next 17 years playing rodeos, fairs and casinos around the west. A member of his band was Dave Shaul, another Wenatchee native.

Ted Hanson and the Country Express shared the stage with an amazing array of country and rock bands in a career that lasted until the early 1980s. They played with the Drifters, the Platters, Lawrence Welk, Three Dog Night, as well as an array of country stars. The group broke up in the early 1980s and Hanson decided to make a career change, focusing on contracting and real estate in Alaska. Today, he and his wife (who also played in the band) run a 300-acre horse ranch in Colorado.

The Mark Glenn and the Young Sisters was Mark McGlenn on guitar and vocals, 13-year old Cindy Young on guitar and vocals (in 1976), and her 11 year old sister Jenni Young on fiddle and vocals. Tom Bruns was on drums and vocals, and Dave Perkins on bass and vocals. They were later joined by Brian Clarke on drums from 1977 until 1980, where they played the Flower Drum in Portland, Oregon.

Kenny Vernon is a country singer and guitar player from Jackson, Tennessee, the same area that gave us two other Carson Nugget performers, Carl Perkins and Eddy Arnold. Kenny starred for many years at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas, and today often fronts for Merle Haggard as a singer and guitar player in many of his shows. Kenny is a very gifted country singer. No less an expert than Bonnie Owens, the former wife of Merle Haggard said Kenny was the greatest singer she ever heard.

Kenny and his older brother, Roy had a 15 minute country music radio show every Saturday morning on WDXI in Jackson, the same station where Wink Martindale began his career. Sometimes the “pickers and grinners” that were on tour and were in Jackson to appear on the brother’s radio show would practice in Kenny's back yard on Friday nights before the Saturday morning show. Many of these artists became household names, and Kenny found that he could play and sing with the best of them.

Kenny moved to Las Vegas in the mid-60s and secured a resident contract at the Golden Nugget, which lasted for 15 years. He wisely put much of his earning into real estate, mainly in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and later lived there for many years with his wife Mary.

Kenny released his first album “On The Bandstand” on TWA in 1966, and three albums with Chart Records between 1969-1970. He signed a contract with the Joe Taylor Artist Agency in 1970 and released an album on Mercury Records that peaked at number 45 on the country charts. In 1973, Kenny released his last album, “Loversville”, on Capitol Records. His cover of Bobby Holly’s “That’ll Be The Day” reached number 24 on the U.S. charts in 1972, and several of his duets with Lawanda Lindsey were very popular.

For the past forty years, Kenny has become a “musician’s musician”. He fronted for many years with Merle Haggard, produced one of Merle’s LPs, and wrote many songs that were recorded by major country artists. Perhaps his most famous song was “Sweet Jesus”, which we wrote with Merle Haggard, and was a major hit for Ray Price.

Today, Kenny still lives in Albuquerque and occasionally plays gigs around the area. Sadly, he lost his wife Mary to cancer on September 11, 2013. They had been married for 47 years.

The Four Tunes Plus One originated from The Brown Dots in New York, a quartet started by Ivory “Deek” Watson, after he split from the original Ink Spots in 1944. The other original members were William “Pat” Best (baritone and guitar), Joe King (tenor), and Jimmy Gordon (bass).

The Brown Dot’s first single, “(I Love You) For Sentimental Reason” was written by Best and Watson in 1945, although Pat Best has been quoted as stating Watson had nothing to do with writing the song except being the group’s leader. The song went on to be the Number One song in 1946 for Nat King Cole, and has since been recorded dozens of times by artists as varied as Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Shore, Sam Cooke, Dean Martin, Dean Martin, The Righteous Brother, and Rod Stewart.

In 1946, the group’s tenor, Joe King was replaced by Jimmie Nabbie and the three recruited Danny Owens to replace the group’s leader, Ivory Watson. The group called themselves as The Sentimentalists, after their hit song, and began recording for Manor. In 1947, the group backed Savannah Churchill on her Number One R&B hit “I Want To Be Loved (But Only By You)”.

After bandleader Tommy Dorsey asked them to stop calling themselves the Sentimentalists, also the name of his vocal group, they changed their name to The Four Tunes. Manor re-recorded all of their Sentimentalists recordings as The Four Tunes and they continued to record for Manor through the spring of 1949, when they switched to RCA Victor, where they had 18 records released between May 1949 and November 1953. The group then switched to the Jubilee label, where they achieved their greatest popularity.

The group’s first recording on Jubilee was “Marie”, an Irving Berlin song that reached Number 2 on the R&B charts and Number 13 on the pop charts in 1954. Ironically, the song had been a former Number One song for Tommy Dorsey in 1937. Their next recording, “I Understand (Just How You Feel)” was even bigger, hitting No. 7 on the R&B charts and Number 6 on the pop chart.

In 1955, they were on tour with popular singer Joni James and she asked Jimmie Nabbie to write a song for her. The result was “You Are My Love”, which was her big hit of the year. Beginning in 1959, they recorded on Crosby, a Las Vegas label partially owned by Jimmie Nabbie, and as “Four Tunes And One” on Robin’s Nest in 1962. Jimmie Nabbie left the group in 1963 to pursue a solo career, followed soon after by Danny Owens. Billy Wells filled Nabbie’s place, and tenor Gaines Steele replaced Owen. A couple of years later, tenor and piano player Frank Dawes joined the group as a utility singer. The recording career of The Four Tunes ended with a record on the ARA label in 1969. The group continued with various members through most of the 1990s and the group disbanded in Carson City in 1998.

Big Tiny Little was born Dudley Little, Jr. in Worthington, Minnesota in 1930, the son of a prominent musician, Tiny Little Sr. He took up piano at the age of five, and also learned the organ, bass horn and bass fiddle. After playing with his father’s band for awhile, he joined the Air Force and toured the Far East. He became a popular member of The Lawrence Welk Show in 1955, just one month after Welk’s debut on national TV. Big Tiny earned millions of fans on the show, and continued with Welk through 1959. He went solo and recorded over 45 albums, as well as countless shows and TV programs over the years. Little also performed at President Reagan’s inaugural ball in 1985, and returned to TV in a PBS special, Lawrence “Welk: Milestones and Memories”. Big Tiny played the casino circuit for many years, and lived in Carson City. He died there on March 3, 2010, aged 79.

1977 Entertainers Stanley Morgan’s The Ink Spots (Jan., Jul., Dec.); Celia & the Golden Goodies (Jan., Feb., May, Jun., Sep., Oct.); The Kenny Vernon Show (Feb., Mar.); The Piranhas (Mar., Sep.); Cathy O’Shea & Joyful Noise (Mar., Apr., Sep.); Four Tunes Plus One (Apr., May, Aug., Nov., Dec.); The Dave Bunker Show (May, Oct.); Celia & the Golden Goodies (May, Jun., Sep., Oct.); The Zella Lehr Show (Jun., Nov.).

1978 Entertainers Stanley Morgan’s The Ink Spots (Jan.); Cathy O’Shea (Jan., May, Jun., Jul.); The Dave Bunker Show (Feb., Nov., Dec.); Ron Pearson & The Pipe Dreams (Feb.); Freddy Powers Show (Mar., Jul.); Four Tunes Plus One (Apr., Aug., Dec.); Big Tiny Little (May; Jun.); The Jerry Sun Show (Sep.); The Jaguars (Oct.); Celia & The Golden Goodies (Nov.); Celia & The Huuily’s (Nov.); The Karen Bailey Show (Dec.).

1979 Entertainers Four Tunes Plus One (Jan., Mar., Apr., Jul.); Big Tiny Little (Jan., Apr., May, Aug.); Marlene & the LA Express (Feb., Jul.); Bobby Freeman (Feb., Mar.); Cathy O’Shea (Mar., Aug.); the Jerry Sun Show (Jun., Sep.); The Jaguars (Sep.); Zella Lehr (Oct., Nov.); the Davis Family (Nov.); the Ninth Creation (Dec.).
 * The Motifs appeared in Oct 1979 at The Ormsby House

Bobby Freeman (born June 13, 1940) is a soul singer and songwriter from San Francisco. He is best known for his two Top Ten hits, the first in 1958 on Josie Records called "Do You Want To Dance?" and the second in 1964 for Autumn Records label, "C'mon and Swim". "Do You Want To Dance?" was covered later (as "Do You Wanna Dance") by Del Shannon, The Beach Boys, Johnny Rivers, Bette Midler, John Lennon, Cliff Richard, The Mamas & The Papas and the Ramones. "C'mon and Swim" was written and produced by 20 year-old Sylvester Stewart, later known as Sly Stone.

Freeman began his recording career at age 14 with the Romancers, who recorded briefly on the Dootone label. At 17, he scored a hit with "Do You Want To Dance?" and appeared on the pop charts with various follow-ups through 1961. In 1964, he was back in the Top Ten with the dance-craze hit "C'mon and Swim", which reached #5. The craze had cooled by the time he released his even more energetic, exciting follow-up "S-W-I-M" which failed to sell as well (#56), but he continued to tour widely over the next few years. In 1964, Bobby Freeman played nightly at the Condor Night Club in San Francisco where Carol Doda performed her topless Go-Go dancing shows. Mainly supporting himself as a singer in clubs by the late 1960s, he released another single in 1974 on Touch Records, but it met with little commercial success. He has performed at the Bay Area Music ("Bammy") Awards in recent years.

The Jaguars were a popular seven-piece band from the Philippines. The band featured Eddie Molina on lead guitar, Merle Lumanlan on bass, vocalist Andy Gutierrez, Sonny Santos on drums, Roger Cubacub on trumpet, and Teddy Tadeo on saxophone and organist Mambaje, who also many of the vocals.

The band was a veteran, high-energy group that featured rock, disco and show music. They were from Manila and spent many years playing service clubs and nightclubs throughout the Far East. They spent five years in Guam before coming to the United States and joining the show circuit in Nevada and on the West Coast.

1980 Entertainers The Jaguars (Jan., Feb.); Four Tunes Plus One (Feb.); Ninth Creation (Mar., May, Jul., Aug.); Gene Evaro Show (May); Jerry Sun Show (Jun., Jul., Oct., Nov.); Triple Threat (Sep.),

Triple Threat featured three dynamic women – Lori Oliver, Siobhan O’Carrol and Doreen Alderman – well choreographed singers and dancers, billed as “triple excitement”. Oliver was a veteran of the Las Vegas lounge circuit, who opened for many noted Las Vegas stars. O’Carrol worked many national and international tours, including guest appearances on BBC and as a back-up act for Sergio Franchi in main showrooms. Alderman was a Broadway veteran who performed in the famous Follies Bergere, and on television with Steve Martin on Saturday Night Live. She owns a dance studio in Glendale, California and was married to actor Kelsey Grammer from 1982 to 1990.

Triple Threat would open with a medley of Top 40 hits, each performing solo, and then dance and sing through a mix of Broadway tunes, musical and movie numbers, and finish with a variety of exciting costume changes and catchy songs. Siobhan O’Carroll went on to become a member of Bete Midler’s Harlettes in 1983, and an actress known for “Peak Practice” in 1993, “Voices in the Dark” in 1985, and “Secrets” in 1982. With the support of her sultry Harlettes and the choreography of Toni Basil, Midler’s performances became known for their exhausting singing and dance routines. Former Harlette Linda Hart was quoted in 2008 as saying that working as a Harlette was "like show business boot camp" and that she learned much from the experience. Midler was also quoted in 2007 as referring to her relationship to her Harlettes in this way: “We have a great relationship. They adore me and I pay them.”

1981 Entertainers The Jaguars (Jan., Feb.); the Jerry Sun Show (Mar.); The Invaders (Mar, April, May);

The Invaders made their first appearance at the Carson Nugget on March 31, replacing the popular Jerry Sun Show. The Invaders were formed in February 1978 from five different bands by leader, and saxophone player Honorio Castillo. They were a brother band to the popular Jaguars, and also based in Portland, Oregon. The band featured Rudy Estrada as lead vocalist, Castillo on sax, Freddie Padua on bass guitar, Joe Escudero on second lead guitar, Jojo Pagulayan on drums, George Silvestre on first lead guitar, Raffy Dones on keyboard and strings, and Richard Hill as second vocalist.