Buzz Cason born 27 November 1939

James Elmore "Buzz" Cason (November 27, 1939 – June 16, 2024) was an American rock singer, songwriter, record producer and author. 

James Elmore Cason was born in Nashville, Tennessee on November 27, 1939. He was a founding member of The Casuals, Nashville's first rock and roll band. With Cason on guitar, they recorded "My Love Song For You" (co-written by Cason and the group's vocalist/keyboardist, Richard Williams) for the tiny Nu Sound label in Nashville. It was picked up by Dot (# 15557) in April 1957 and became a local hit. The Casuals started touring and were heard by Brenda Lee's manager, Dub Allbritten, who asked them to become Brenda's backing band. They accepted the offer and some of the group members, notably Richard Williams, would stay with Brenda until the mid-seventies! 

In 1958 Cason met Bobby Russell (1941-1992), the later writer of such megahits as "Honey", "Little Green Apples" and "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia. They started writing songs together and had two of their songs recorded by Jan and Dean. Also, Buzz and Richard Williams teamed up with Hugh Jarrett of the Jordanaires to record as The Statues for Liberty ("Blue Velvet", # 84 in 1960). At Liberty, Cason was approached by producer Snuff Garrett to cover a song from the film "Circus of Horrors", called "Look For A Star". The original version was by British singer Garry Mills ; Cason was renamed Garry Miles by Garrett for the occasion. "Can you imagine?" he said, "We not only took the guy's song, we pretty much stole his name, too. Cason's version of "Look For A Star" passed the original on the charts, peaking at # 16. 

                                   

Cason left the Casuals in 1962, to work as Snuff Garrett's assistant at Liberty Records. During this period, he and Leon Russell, then a session musician, produced The Crickets in a version of the song "La Bamba". The song did well in the United Kingdom and he toured with the group. In Nashville he also worked for arranger Bill Justis.

 Around the same time, and under a variety of pseudonyms, Cason also worked as a session vocalist for several Nashville-based budget labels that specialized in issuing knock-off soundalike versions of popular hits. These tracks were recorded quickly and made available for sale at budget prices. 

All told, Cason sang lead on at least seven of these 'soundalike' singles issued in 1962 and 1963, under such names as "Tommy Fuller", "Fred X. Brown", "Bob Lester", "Bill Allison", "Bill Austin', "Farley Wayne", and "The Shaw Brothers" — both of whom were Cason, double-tracked.

He moved to Los Angeles and produced the Crickets (with whom he would tour the UK in 1964, as a member), Buddy Knox and a few hot rod groups. He also did background vocals for Bobby Vee, Jackie DeShannon and Walter Brennan. After getting fired by Liberty in 1964, Buzz went back to Nashville to run Bill Justis's publishing company, Tuneville Music. At that time, Justis produced a hot rod group called Ronny and the Daytonas (who had a # 4 hit with "G.T.O." in 1964). For some time Cason was a member of the studio version of this group and wrote "Sandy" for them, a # 27 hit in late 1965. 

In 1967, Cason had his biggest success as a songwriter, with "Ever- lasting Love". The original version by Robert Knight went to # 13 on the Billboard charts, then a British cover by The Love Affair topped the UK charts in early 1968. The song was published by Cason's own publishing company, Rising Sons (also a record label, on which the Robert Knight version came out), which he had started in 1966, together with his old pal Bobby Russell and Fred Foster of Monument Records. Dolly Parton's first Monument single, the remarkable "Don't Drop Out", was also written by Cason and Russell. 

In the sixties and seventies, Buzz Cason recorded under his own name for a wide variety of labels, but without chart success. In 1970, Cason founded 'Creative Workshop', a recording studio for producing acts for Southern Writers Group USA (SWG), Nashville's first writer-owned group of music publishing companies. He kept writing songs and had a # 2 country hit in 1972, "Ann (Don't Go Running)" by Tommy Overstreet on Dot. From the mid-1980s he had his own rockabilly-styled group, 'B.C. & the Dartz' who released some albums. The 1990s saw the release of the Beatles' "Live at the BBC" recordings, which included Cason's "Soldier of Love", previously recorded by Arthur Alexander. 

His book, Living the Rock'N'Roll Dream: The Adventures of Buzz Cason (2004), is about music, freedom, and adventure and sheds light on the events and careers that shaped the early days of rock and roll.  In 2018, Buzz released the album Billy & Buzz Sing Buddy, a tribute to Buddy Holly, with fellow songwriter Billy Swan. He was still writing and producing songs up until his death in Franklin, Tennessee on June 16, 2024, at the age of 84. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & This Is My Story)