Mike and The Bel-Airs
Holiday Records HD-3001
N.R.C. Productions
San Antonio, Texas
[1962]
Hilburn grew up around the country music scene in Texas. He played with Willie Nelson before Nelson was well-known. He even interviewed Elvis Presley on the radio.
Hilburn laughs about a time when Willie Nelson was asking him for a job. At the time, around 1954, Hilburn was working as a disc jockey at a radio station in Pleasanton. Hilburn spoke to one of his superiors and said, "He's a great guitar player, but he doesn't sing too well."
"Willie was the kind of person that never forgot his friends. He was just easy going, didn't get upset if you made a mistake," Hilburn said. "He was a kind and generous person, and he loved farmers."
Hilburn grew up on a farm between Pleasanton and Floresville. "My dad never liked me to play," Hilburn said. "He thought it was a waste. He wanted me to be a farmer." But Hilburn's mother encouraged his music, giving him a harmonica when he was 4. "I learned to play it by the time I was 5 years old," Hilburn said. "And when I was 8 years old, I talked my mom into getting me a guitar." "
Hilburn is a self-taught musician. His family could not afford music lessons; so he did whatever he could to learn. At 15, he obtained a fiddle from a friend through a trade. When he graduated from high school, he insisted on getting a guitar for his graduation present.
Hilburn enjoyed his first success when he was 18. The local movie theaters in and around the Pleasanton area were organizing talent contests. Hilburn said he won the contest for eight weeks in a row. "KBOP outside of Pleasanton heard about me. The advertiser on the air wanted me to come out and audition. I was 18 years old, playing guitar and all the girls was looking. Right away I got me a spot on the station."
Hilburn went on the radio with his own show. Shortly afterward, Hilburn got his chance to make regular appearances on television. It seemed he was on his way. But when I turned 21, Uncle Sam decided he needed my services," Hilburn said. It was 1952 during the Korean War. Hilburn was called to Germany with the special services unit. He spent two years performing at clubs for noncommissioned officers. When he came back from Korea, he went back to the radio station and worked as a disc jockey.
Since then, he has watched many musicians come and go. He has organized many bands, and seen many fall apart. One of his biggest successes was during the period when he played at a well-known local hang-out, the Breezeway Club. He performed there from 1971 to 1976 and again from 1978 to 1979. He also played at Johnny Lee's Club in Pasadena.
Hilburn worked as a quality assurance manager for Taft Broadcasting at NASA, which broadcasts activities such as shuttle launches.
With only one or two exceptions, everything on Harlem, Hour, and related labels was recorded at Jeff Smith’s Texas Sound Studios, located on Hildebrand Avenue on the city’s North Side. Anyone who has spent more than five minutes collecting Texas labels is familiar with the “TSS” designation, etched into the run-off grooves of countless singles from the late 1950s until the early 1970s. But who was Jeff Smith?
“Jeff was like an old-style Chamber of Commerce guy,” Carr says. “You do business with him, he’ll go out and promote you. Jeff would take stuff out to the stations. And of course, if it was a Jeff custom pressed job, he’d get ‘em out there early in the day. Jeff was probably the most accommodating engineer I’ve ever met. (But) he had no knowledge of the music. And he was a little bit cautious with running the meters. I’m sure rock and roll killed him (from an aural standpoint). He got a little confused with the electric bass for awhile, particularly with the early stuff on Harlem. You can hear it on “Oh Please Love Me.’ It did knock the needles off the jukeboxes.”
In 1946, when he was barely 13 years old, Larry Nolen began his professional music career. He was asked to play rhythm guitar with The Mountain Rhythm Band which featured Boy and Gene, the Jacoby Brothers. Smiley Whitley, leader of one of the most famous western swing bands in Texas, recognized a star on the rise and invited Larry to play with his band, Smiley Whitley and the Texans. They performed most Saturday nights at Bandera’s famous Cabaret Dancehall and also hosted a radio show at San Antonio’s KONO / KMAC radio station five days a week. Larry delivered his first solo radio performance one day when he was the only band member who was able to travel to the station during a severe ice storm in San Antonio. http://www.songridersstudio.com/larry-nolen.html
The CenturysRead more HERE
"The Centurys" started in 1963 at Alamo Heights High School at the annual Howdy Night Fiesta. Tony Volz and Bill Bellamy had taken guitar lessons at Caldwell Music Co. from Ed Fest over the summer. Tony had a National fat body electric guitar and I had a Fender 3/4 Musicmaster solid body. We shared a Silvertone Twin Twelve Amplifier with reverb and tremolo. Our passion was instrumentals by The Ventures and Freddy King. So we played almost unnoticed at Howdy Night as the music of choice then was country western and the best band was Peyton Starr and The Drifters featuring Johnny Witherspoon. One fellow noticed, a different kind of guy from New York with Brylcream hair named Pat Wellberg. He asked if he could sit in and produced a white Fender Stratocaster with an Ampeg fliptop amplifier. What proceeded was an outrageous version of Gandy Dancer by The Ventures executed with flawless double picking. We recruited Pat instantly and a fellow nearby said he was Jimmy Taylor and could play drums. Jim had a white pearl Ludwig set and could play Wipeout. Pat's brother, Ed had played with Joey Dee and The Starlighters at the Peppermint Lounge in NY. Remember the Peppermint Twist? Ed told us at practice that we'd be more professional if we did steps (choreography) And wore black and gold lamme tux jackets which he happened to have. So we did.
