Rafael Mendez born 26 March 1906

Rafael Méndez (March 26, 1906 – September 15, 1981) was known as the "Heifetz of the Trumpet" and one of the greatest trumpet players of the 20th century who strove to make the trumpet a classical solo instrument. He composed, or arranged, over 300 works featuring the trumpet. His big pure tones, technique and style have never been matched by any other trumpeter. 

Age 15 

Born in Jiquilpan, Mexico, Rafael Méndez’s musical training began at five when his father needed a trumpet player for an orchestra comprised of family members. The Méndez orchestra, a popular performing group, appeared regularly at festivals and community gatherings. Rafael loved the trumpet and actually practiced more than his father allowed. 

In 1916, the Méndez orchestra performed for guerrilla leader Pancho Villa. So taken with the family orchestra, he “drafted” them into his army. Rafael quickly became Villa’s favorite player, and after several months demanded that Méndez stay with the rebels, even after the rest of his family were allowed to return home. Months later, Méndez was released from the rebel army, and he began to perform in several traveling circus bands, in addition to the family orchestra. 

He joined the Mexican army in 1921, playing in the army orchestra. At age twenty, Méndez moved to the United States, working in steel mills in Gary, Indiana. Unhappy that he could not play his trumpet as much as he desired, Méndez moved to Flint, Michigan, where he began working at the Buick Company plant and playing in the company band. After winning a last minute audition for the Capitol Theatre orchestra, Méndez moved to Detroit and began working with other orchestras in the area, including the Ford orchestra and the Fox Theatre orchestra. It was also here that he met and married Amor Rodriguez. 

In 1932, Méndez suffered the first of two, horrific embouchure accidents. While warming up at the Capitol Theatre, a door was carelessly thrown open, his trumpet crushed against his face. After studying unsuccessfully with several famous trumpet teachers, he returned to Mexico to study with his father. A year later, Méndez returned to the United States, moved to New York and joined the band of Rudy Vallee. After touring Southern California with the Vallee band, Méndez and his wife fell in love with California and moved there in 1937. Méndez’s twin sons, Rafael Jr. and Robert were born shortly before the move to California. 

                                    

In 1939, Méndez joined the MGM orchestra, where he played on several movie soundtracks and performed regular live concerts. A Decca records representative offered him a twelve record contract after hearing him featured in an MGM concert. He was also contracted to arrange, compose, and author trumpet method books by the Carl Fischer company. Méndez began to appear more frequently as a soloist with orchestras away from the movie studio, appearing on such well-known shows as the Bing Crosby Show, the Red Skelton Show, the Art Linkletter Show, Milton Berle’s Texaco Star Theater, and Xavier Cugat and his Orchestra featured Méndez as a regular soloist at the Hollywood Bowl. Méndez’s popularity as a trumpet soloist led to conflicts with his MGM schedule, and in 1949, he left the orchestra. 

It was at this time that Méndez began his full-time career as a trumpet soloist. He appeared with symphony orchestras, college ensembles, concert bands and big bands across the US and Europe. Soon he was performing more than one hundred concerts per year. He is regarded as the popularizer of "La Virgen de la Macarena", commonly known as "the bullfighter's song", to US audiences. His most significant if not famous single recording, "Moto Perpetuo", was written in the nineteenth century by Niccolò Paganini for violin. It features Mendez double-tonguing continuously for over 4 minutes while circular breathing to give the illusion that he is not taking a natural breath while playing. 

Having a strong sense of duty toward education, he began to work with public school bands as a soloist and clinician more frequently as his career progressed. His fame led to him signing an endorsement contract with the F.E. Olds & Sons trumpet manufacturing company. In the 1950s, Méndez began to appear in concert with his twin sons, who had also learned to play trumpet. He also began to appear regularly with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. 

By the late 1950s, Méndez was having serious asthma related problems and difficulty playing the trumpet to his own high standards. In 1967, he was hit in the face with an errant bat while attending a baseball game in Mexico. He eventually healed, but the accident, combined with his failing health led him to cut his concert schedule drastically. He retired from performing in 1975, but continued to compose and arrange. Rafael Méndez died, at home, on September 15, 1981.

(Edited from Rafael Mendez Brass Institute & Wikipedia)  

Wee Willie Harris born 25 March 1933

Charles William Harris (25 March 1933 – 27 April 2023), better known by his stage name of Wee Willie Harris, was an English rock and roll singer. He is best known for his energetic stage shows and TV performances starting in the 1950s, when he was known as "Britain's wild man of rock 'n' roll". 

For a fleeting moment in the late 1950s, Wee Willie Harris was one of Britain’s hottest homegrown performers in a still-evolving rock ‘n’ roll scene. He was a genuine dynamo, a 5ft 2″ pink-haired pocket rocket and cheeky with it. By the autumn of 1956, Willie was a regular on the Soho scene where he performed as plain Charlie or sometimes as ‘Finger’ Harris, making the rounds of the innumerable clubs and coffee bars which had sprung up in the area. He briefly fronted an obscure Soho combo called Lo’Don’s Ravin’ Rockers and also hung out at the Nucleus coffee bar in Shaftesbury Avenue where jazzman Diz Dizley taught him a few chords on the guitar. 

Harris with Shirley Douglas

He was soon earning enough money singing to pack in his job at the Peek Freans’ factory in Reading where he mixed puddings in the Christmas pudding department. In November 1957, he was picked by TV producer Jack Good to appear in the BBC show Six-Five Special. His appearances on the show led to concerns being expressed in the media about the BBC's role in "promoting teenage decadence" due to Willie calling the stuffy broadcaster Gilbert Harding “Daddy-O”. 

                                   

His debut single, the self-penned "Rockin' At the 2 I's", was released on the Decca label in December 1957, and was followed by several others, although none reached the UK Singles Chart. He became a popular performer on TV shows and in live performances, and was known for his energy, multi-coloured dyed hair (often green, orange, or pink), and clothes including "larger-than-life stage jackets that looked like the coat hanger was still inside, tight drainpipe trousers, and a huge polka-dot bow tie". 

Another critic wrote that: "He gyrates like an exploding Catherine wheel, emitting growls, squeals and what sounds like severe hiccupping". Paul McCartney and John Lennon reportedly queued for his autograph when he played in Liverpool in 1958. According to Harris, the idea for dyeing his hair pink originally came from his manager, professional wrestler and wrestling promoter Paul Lincoln, who was inspired by American wrestler Gorgeous George. 

Harris with Johnny Duncan & Cliff Richard

In May 1960, he joined a tour of the UK featuring Conway Twitty, Freddy Cannon, and Johnny Preston. He continued to record in the 1960s, for His Master's Voice, Polydor, and Parlophone, and continued to perform in the UK as well as in Israel, Spain, and on cruise ships. He also became the first Western pop star to tour the Holy Land in 1962. When the story of early British rock’n’roll is told now, it is the more groomed or teen-friendly names who came up behind him and enjoyed real chart success, such as Marty Wilde, Cliff and The Shadows and Billy Fury who get all the accolades. 

In the mid 1970s, he lived in Prestwich, near Manchester. He resurfaced in the late 1970s as a nostalgia act, after Ian Dury mentioned him in the song "Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3". Harris later recorded an album dedicated to Dury, Twenty Reasons To Be Cheerful (2000), and his early recordings were released on CD in 1999. In 1991, he briefly featured in the music video for Hale & Pace's "The Stonk" contribution to Comic Relief and, in 2003, he released the album Rag Moppin', backed by the Alabama Slammers. 

In 2005, Harris appeared as a "mystery guest" on the comedy music quiz programme Never Mind the Buzzcocks, and was easily identified. In 2011, he was interviewed by Melvyn Bragg as part of the series Reel History of Britain, talking about rock and roll in Britain. 

Rollercoaster Records published I Go Ape! - The Wee Willie Harris Story by Rob Finnis, a 88 page illustrated biography accompanied by a 30-track CD, featuring the best of Harris's rock and roll recordings, in 2018. Up until the pandemic he was still performing, one of British rock’n’roll’s most unforgettable voices. 

Wee Willie Harris died on 27 April 2023, at age 90. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & Nostalgia Central)

 

Nora Ney born 23 March 1922

Iracema de Sousa Ferreira (March 20, 1922 – October 28, 2003), better known by her stage name Nora Ney, was a Brazilian singer, songwriter and instrumentalist and an avowed supporter of Olaria Atlético Clube. 

Fascinated with the world of music, Iracema assiduously attended radio and auditorium programs during her youth. Unlike the other several radio singers, she had her career encouraged by her father, who presented her with a guitar, which she self taught to play. While living in Urca, she met Dick Farney and Cibele, where she began to perform at small events.  The friendship with this couple led Iracema to meet Lúcio Alves, who participated in meetings of the Sinatra-Farney fan club, at this couple's home. All these contacts made her meet the director of Rádio Tupi, who hired her to sing on the night program "Fantasias Musicais" presented by José Mauro. 

With her fame growing more and more, she changed her stage name to Nora Ney after a fan mistakenly wrote a letter to her. Soon after, she was invited by Almirante to work on the "Viva o Samba" segment on the "G-3" program, as a substitute for Aracy de Almeida during her vacations. Thus, requests began to arise for Nora to add Brazilian songs to her repertoire, further increasing her success. Her talent gave her a resounding success with the local public and she got a contract at Rádio Nacional, where she set audience peaks on the program Quando Canta o Brasil at 9 pm.  Later, due to great demand, Ney also began to appear on other radio programs, such as "Trio do Osso" by Mayrink Veiga and Cruzeiro do Sul. With all these achievements in her career, she achieved financial independence. Increasingly popular, her voice quickly caught the attention of music producers. 

In 1952, through the Continental label, she recorded four sides including “Menino Grande", “Quanto Tempo Faz". "Amor, Meu Grande Amor", and lastly  "Ninguém me Ama"which became very popular and gained the first ever Brazilaian record to receive a Gold Disc. This smash hit "Nobody Loves Me" was later covered by American singer Nat King Cole when he was on tour in Brazil and fell in love with the song. 

                                    

Despite being a notable samba-canção interpreter, Nora Ney became one of the pioneers of the Brazilian rock by recording the first rock LP in the country: the Brazilian version of "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets (soundtrack of Sementes da Violência movie) in October 1955. After only one week, the song became a hit, and began a trend for Brazilian singers making covers of rock songs.. This made her the first singer to record the rock musical style in the national territory. However, despite the great success, Nora did not continue with the Rock & Roll style. 

By 1963 Nora had earned the honorary nickname "Queen of Radio" and  alongside Jorge Goulart, her husband, she went on an international tour of countries in North and South America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, also becoming one of the first Brazilian singers to perform in the "countries of the Iron Curtain" in Eastern Europe. On April 1, 1964, Ney was performing at the theater of the National Union of Students, when the coup d'état of 64 took place.  With that, Ney, along with her husband, moved to Russia, due to the persecution that was beginning against the communists in Brazil. 

In Russia, Ney was already known and loved due to a presentation made in 1959. Only in 1968 did she return to the national territory, where she continued her successful career by adapting to the musical style of the moment; granting her the nickname "Goddess". Upon returning to Brazil, she released "Mudar de Conversa", her first album in eight years. In the early 70s, she did a residency alongside Goulart at the nightclub "Feitiço da Vila", in Belo Horizonte. 

She continued in the 1980’s in various shows and in 1989she performed in a series of shows entitled "The Eternal Singers of Radio", which was very well received by the public and specialized critics. Later, the show became an album.  The following year, she performed a concert in celebration of the anniversary of Rádio Cultura in São Paulo. In 1992, during a concert at the Rio de Janeiro club Fluminense, Nora suffered a stroke. The consequences caused her to have to step away from the stage, consequently, retiring. From then on, Nora gave some interviews over time. She stayed  reclusive at home and faced some health problems but always did well. 

In 2000, she was honored by Elymar Santos in one of his concerts at Canecão, where in a wheelchair, she sang "Ninguém Me Ama",On July 6, 2001, due to respiratory failure, from which she had suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for years, Ney was admitted to the intensive care unit of Hospital Samaritano, in Rio de Janeiro.

The singer died at the age of 81, on October 28, 2003, due to multiple organ failure, at Hospital Samaritano, where she had been hospitalized for three months.

(Edited and translated from Brazilian Wikipedia) 

Little Ann born 22 March 1945

Little Ann (22 March 1945 – 26 January 2003) was an American soul singer. Her recording career was short-lived but her work was 'rediscovered' shortly before her death. 

Originally born Ann Bridgeforth from Chicago, but growing up in the small town of Mount Clemens in Michiganin 1957, "Little Ann" Bridgeforth sang in church, inspired by local gospel legend Aretha Franklin.. She later performed regularly as a singer, including at her cousin's club, Michelle's Playroom. When she was getting gigs elsewhere, she changed her name to Little Ann - how she was known within the family, as the youngest of seven brothers and sisters. 

In 1967 in Detroit, she recorded "Deep Shadows", produced by Dave Hamilton, but it was not released, and was almost lost to history. During 1969, she recorded an album's worth of her soulful singing, with Hamilton. The record company, Ric-Tic, released only one song, "Going Down a One Way Street", as a single (Ric-Tic142). Apparently when they took the song to Wingate he demanded they change the lyrics and the arrangements. He also put an instrumental on the flip side. 

                                   

Unfortunately when Ric-Tic was taken over by Motown, Ann’s career seemed to be over. Her dreams of national exposure ultimately withered with time and neglect, although under new management of Rony Darrell, Ann got some cabaret work in Canada and during her stay she recorded and released two singles in 1972 under her real name. 

She then met up with a white rock group called Fat Chance and they toured together extensively over three years. She then resumed her solo career working in Canada and Detroit until 1977when she quit show business to work with the Chrysler Motor Corporation, where she made a successful career for herself. 

Though she continued to sing in church when she returned to Michigan, she had largely forgotten about her music career. But for two decades, the tapes of those early Hamilton recordings quietly collected dust. In the early 1980s, an acetate of a Little Ann song was discovered by someone in England. Under the title "When He's Not Around" by Rose Valentine, it became a big hit in the Northern soul scene. It wasn't until 1990 that two British soul collectors, Gilly and Andy Taylor came upon the Hamilton tapes while digging through his vaults  and found that the Rose Valentines single was in fact “What Should I Do” by Little Ann. Thus began the slow discovery of Little Ann, as several of her songs turned up on compilations by the U.K.'s respected Ace/Kent imprint. 

"Deep Shadows" was finally heard by the world on the CD compilation Dave Hamilton's Detroit Dancers, Vol 1 in 1998, along with two other, at-that-time unreleased, tracks. It has since been covered several times and has featured in a Nike Jordan trainers ad in the US. Further unreleased tracks appeared on Detroit Dancers Volumes 2 and 3, in 1999 and 2006 respectively, before the tracks were compiled on vinyl in 2009 with the release of the entire Deep Shadows album on Helsinki's Timmion Records. 

When Ace Records acquired Dave Hamilton’s Detroit studio tapes, more previously unheard gems came to light: eventually there were found to be nine songs recorded in 1967 and 1968 with Dave and his partner Darrell Goolsby. ‘Who Are You Trying To Fool’, ‘Sweep It Out In The Shed’ and ‘Lean Lanky Daddy’ proved to be perfect additions for the Northern Soul dance scene, while ‘I Got To Have You’ and ‘Possession’ wowed the funk crowd, and the beauty of ‘Deep Shadows’ got through to every type of soul fan. 

Finally, with the release of some of her music, thirty five years after launching her career, Little Ann was flown to the UK and performed on stage in June 1999 at the 6t’s Cleethorpes Weekender in England to the type of adulation she would have dreamt about as a child. When in the UK, Ann re-recorded “Who Are You Trying To Fool" for Ian Levine’s video documentary The Strange World Of Northern Soul. 

Sadly Ann Bridgeforth died in Michigan on the 26th January 2003, just as her talents were finally being recognized. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, Ady Crosdell liner notes, NPR, Soul Discovery, Discogs & Soulful Detroit)

Please note that Little Ann (Bridgeforth) is not to be confused with Little Ann (Sandford) who recorded with Tarheel Slim between 1959 and 1965. 

Ronnie Haig born 21 March 1939

Ronnie Haig (21 March 1939 - 18 September 2024) was an American Rockabilly singer, songwriter, and guitarist who became a well-known dynamic performer and earned his induction into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame in 1988.  

The Five Stars

Ronald D. Hege was born in Indianapolis and started playing guitar at age 6 and played his first gig at 16. While attending Arsenal Tech High School, he played in a multi-racial student doo-wop group called the Twilighters.  Around the same time, he also performed and recorded with the vocal group the Five Stars. 

Following graduation in 1957, he recorded songs with Chicago’s Chess Records (where he informally jammed with Chuck Berry). His best known song, "Don't You Hear Me Calling Baby" was originally recorded (in the Chess studio in Chicago, with jazz man Wes Montgomery on rhythm guitar) for the small Note label from Indianapolis, owned by Jerry and Mel Herman. It caught the attention of ABC-Paramount, who took over the distribution from Note. Though it didn't chart nationally, the record earned Ronnie an appearance on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" and it did well enough locally to warrant a second single, recorded on May 10, 1958, again in the Chess studio. 

                                  

The harvest of this session (a split session with the Students, who laid down "I'm So Young") was the excellent single "Rockin' With Rhythm & Blues"/"Money Is a Thing Of the Past". This single never made it to ABC-Paramount because of an unfortunate incident. "Don't You Hear Me Calling, Baby" had just started getting airplay on the East Coast when a listener in Boston called in to a local deejay and told him that played at 33-1/3 rpm the end of the record sounded obscene. Instead of checking this at home, the deejay tried it on the air and immediately got a call from the station owner. The result was a ban of the single in Boston because it supposedly contained a swear word in the final seconds. 

In spite of this setback, Ronnie kept on performing and touring with some of the greats like the Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley, Ricky Nelson and Don Gibson. He recorded another rocking Note single (with Jerry Seifert) in July 1958, "Dirty White Bucks And Tight Pegged Pants", coupled with "Never Baby Never" and again recorded at the Chess studio. His next recording session was in February 1961, resulting in four tracks which remained unissued until the early 1990s. 

Then Uncle Sam came knocking and on September 21, 1961, Ronnie began a 3-year stint in the US Army. After his discharge, he found out that the music scene had dramatically changed and he signed on with Prudential Insurance as a salesman, retiring from the music business until the mid-1980s. Haig began leading a 50s style Rock-N-Roll band in Indy for many years following his brush with fame.  In fact, Ronnie Haig and the Pletchers (name taken from back-up singers Carla Sue and Roxie Pletcher) became the first house band at the Fountain Room, which opened in the historic Fountain Square Theatre building in 1994. 

Also in the 1990s, Haig released some more CDs, with new material, one in the country field "Branching Out", a few  gospel albums including "Treasures Of Time" and two rock and roll collections, "Up Close And Personal" and "Still Kickin' Butt" (2002) still playing his Gibson ES – 295 Gold, which he bought in 1956. It's been said that only 50 of this model were made until the reissue made by Gibson. During his later years Ronnie suffered from a bone degenerative disease that put him out of the performing business. He died 18 September 2024, in his home town of Indianapolis, Indiana.

 (Edited from This Is My Story & Voy Forums)

Don Edwards born 20 March 1936

Don Edwards (March 20, 1936* – October 23, 2022) was an American cowboy singer, guitarist, and recording artist who specialized in Western music. Edwards released more than a dozen solo albums from 1980 through 2010, as well as a greatest hits collection. Two of his albums, Guitars & Saddle Songs and Songs of the Cowboy, are included in the Folklore Archives of the Library of Congress. 

Singer/songwriter Don Edwards has dedicated his musical career to recapturing and preserving the spirit of the Old West by recording old and new cowboy songs. Almost alone in his enthusiasm when he took up the cowboy genre, by the 1990s he reigned as the pre-eminent specialist in a field that began to attract many other musicians. Edwards was born and raised in Boonton, a New Jersey farming community. Inspired by the books of cowboy author Will James (such as The Lone Cowboy), he took up the guitar at age ten. He learned his first Western songs from the films of cowboy crooners Gene Autry and Tex Ritter, later discovering Jimmie Rodgers. At age 16, he left home to work in the oil fields and ranches of Texas and New Mexico in order to experience Western life and the landscape firsthand. 

Edwards made his professional debut in 1961 after he was hired as a singer, actor, and stuntman at the newly opened amusement park Six Flags Over Texas. He worked there for five years before moving to Nashville to seek a recording contract. Although the folk revival was in full swing, no one was much interested in Western music at the time. Edwards eventually recorded an album combining classic Western numbers with some of his own compositions on the independent Stop label. Some of the songs were played on the radio, but they never hit the charts, and Edwards returned to Texas and settled in the Fort Worth area. 

                      Here’s “Whoppi Ti Yi Yo” from above CD

                                   

In 1980, Larry Scott, a Los Angeles DJ, helped Edwards record the Happy Cowboy album, which featured backup musicians from Gene Autry's band and the Sons of the Pioneers. Edwards released the album on his own Sevenshoux label. A visit to the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada in the early '80s inspired him to create a 24-song tribute to Jack Thorp, the cowboy musician who first began collecting traditional cowboy songs, on a cassette packaged with a book entitled Songs of the Cowboy. He then released a second book/cassette anthology, Guitars and Saddle Songs, and in 1990 released the album Desert Nights and Cowtown Blues. 

In 1992 Edwards signed with the new Warner Western label helmed by Michael Martin Murphey and released Songs of the Trail, a spare album of traditional songs that gave the dry, melancholy, sometimes-violent narratives of the cowboy a startling immediacy. Edwards gained exposure from his major-label association and became a fixture at clubs and events with any kind of Western theme throughout Texas and the Southwest. He followed up Songs of the Trail with Goin' Back to Texas (1993), an album containing new Western songs by some of the best writers in Nashville. Also in 1993 he appeared on Nanci Griffith's Grammy Award winning album Other Voices, Other Rooms on which he accompanied Griffith on a Michael Burton song entitled "Night Rider's Lament". 

The summer of 1997 found Don in Livingston, Montana portraying the role of "Smokey" in Robert Redford 's film The Horse Whisperer. Also that year Edwards moved to the folk-oriented Shanachie label and continued to dip into his vast song bag of traditional Western material with the double-CD Saddle Songs: Vols. 1 & 2 of 1997.Subsequent Shanachie releases saw Edwards branching out musically even as he stuck with Western songs. My Hero, Gene Autry: A Tribute (1998) was recorded at a live appearance honoring Autry on his 90th birthday, and two years later Edwards resurfaced with Prairie Portrait, a project recorded with cowboy poet Waddie Mitchell and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. 

Kin to the Wind, a tribute to Marty Robbins, was issued in early 2001. The 2002 project High Lonesome Cowboy teamed Edwards with folk-bluegrass singer Peter Rowan and several other acoustic music luminaries, putting a new twist on Edwards' cowboy material. A final Shanachie project, the double-disc Last of the Troubadours: Saddle Songs, Vol. 2, appeared in 2004, followed by Moonlight and Skies on Western Jubilee in 2006. In 2005, Edwards was inducted into the Western Music Association Hall of Fame.

 Don Edwards died on October 23, 2022 at the age of 86. 

(Edited from AllMusic & Wikipedia) (* other sources give 1939 as birth year)

 

Tibby Edwards born 19 March 1935

Tibby Edwards (19 March 1935 – 21 September 1999) was a country and rockabilly singer and guitarist.

Tibby Edwards was born Edwin Thibodaux in Garland, Louisiana. By the time he was 15 or 16, he'd fallen heavily under the influence of Roy Acuff, Lefty Frizzell, & Hank Williams all of whom were then beginning to dominate the national country charts. Around 1949, he met Lefty Frizzell. For a number of years afterward, Tibby became Lefty's musical protege. The two of them lived together, toured extensively together, & frequently sang together on stage At one point in the mid-1950's Tibby toured California & Washington state with Lefty & appeared briefly on the legendary television show, Town Hall Party, in Compton, California, along with other artists like Tex Ritter, Joe Maphis & The Collins Kids. 

After he & Lefty eventually parted ways, Tibby moved to Beaumont, Texas, there he sang in clubs frequently with other local talents like, George Jones & Benny Barnes. Tibby's version of "Play It Cool Man, Play It Cool" an early Jones original was released on Mercury on the flip side of "Shift Gears". It was musical entrepreneur J.D. Miller who first bought Tibby & his fellow musical associate Jimmie C Newman to Nashville in 1953 to audition for the Mercury label, "They took me & turned Jimmie Newman down" he recalled in an interview to Bob Allen in 1985, "looking back on it now that might have been a mistake". 

                                   

During the next five years he completed a number of recording sessions for both Mercury & Starday labels. In December 1952, when he was just 17 years old, his career took another significant step when he landed membership on The Louisiana Hayride where he held the record, along with Hank Williams & Elvis Presley for the most encores received from a Hayride audience. When the Rockabilly craze swept through the nation in the mid 50's, Tibby like most country entertainers of the day was not immune to it; he cut a fine version of Joe Turner's "Flip Flop & Fly" in Nashville in August 1955. Tibby recalled "This was when Elvis showed up on the Scene" Tibby often appeared on the same Saturday night lineup as Elvis. 

"I introduced Elvis on the Hayride, in fact, I'd been singing "Blue Moon Of Kentucky" & "That's Alright Mama" on the show & I was tearing audiences up with them, it was maybe not so much because of my singing, but maybe just because people were ready for that change. I remember when Elvis & Bill & Scotty first came down to play the Hayride, I was sharing a backstage dressing room with Johnny Horton, the first thing Elvis did was come up the stairs & introduce himself to me. He just wanted to thank me for singing his songs. it was a great honor". 

The 12 singles Mercury issued between 1953 & 1957 were cut at Owen Bradley's studios in Nashville, D. Kilpatrick (A&R man & staff producer for Mercury records, who later went on to succeed Jim Denny as manager of the Grand Ole Opry, produced these sessions & the backing was provided by Hank William's Original Drifting Cowboys, also on the session were Floyd Cramer on piano & Chet Atkins on rhythm guitar. In 1958 Tibby entered the Army, he was processed at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, within a few days of when Elvis was processed at the same facility. with his entry into the army this was effectively when his career came to an end, Starday released a 45 at the tail end of his Mercury output, this was also re-titled & re-released on the Mercury label, he also cut one 45 for Louisiana based Jin label & disappeared from the music scene. 

It was reported that in his later years Tibby became a heavy drinker and that he died from cancer on September 21, 1999 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 

(Edited from Bob Allen's Bear Family liner notes & Rocky 52).