Wow... I never would have imagined that I could create a whole page of reader feedback just about my Webb Pierce country music fan page... Yet feelings seem to run strong about the world's greatest country singer, so here we go, starting off with a note or two from Webb's own family (!) For those of you interested in what readers have had to say about some of my other country music pages, check out this groovy batch of hick music fan mail...
Audra Davis wrote:
>
> Hey...The fact that you have a web site devoted to Webb Pierce has made
> my day. He was a wonderful person, and I wish he were still here. I was
> fortunate enough to have known him for a good portion of my life. He was
> the greatest grandfather anyone could ever have. Thank you so much.
>
> Audra
Wow... thank you. I'm truly honored.
Subject: Wow!
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 00:28:47 -0500
From: Audra Davis
To: joesixpack@slipcue.com
References: 1 , 2
I'm really glad you responded. I would love to continue to correspond!
To answer your question...yes, I am Debbie's (she goes by Deborah now) daughter.
I was so happy to find any web page having to do with Webb (well, I called him Papa). There aren't many out there. Not a whole lot of people know who he was. He was like a father to me, though.
Papa was a real sweetheart. He was a big teddybear. He loved to bowl, watch tv, and sneeze really loudly. : ) If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask...I don't know where to start.
When I found your web page, I called Mimi (Audrey), and told her about it. She was excited. When I read it to her, she was almost in tears. She was very proud, and she said that if I heard back from you, she sends her thanks and approval. When I talked to her a couple of days later, she had gone to Uncle Webb's (Webb Jr.) and told him about it, and they looked at it together. Uncle Webb liked it too.
As I said before, I would love to keep in touch. There aren't a whole lot of people that I can really talk with about Papa. And, of course I will answer any questions that you have, and if I don't know the answers, I'll call everyone in my family to find out. : )
Thank you so much...again.
Audra
Subject: Webb Pierce
Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2002 19:54:52 -0500
From: "Harold Chamberlin"
To:
Hi Joe, I happened to come across your page on Webb and thought you'd get a kick out of what he did here in NH. As you probably a lot of times he would be booked and the promoter or a local agent would come up with a good local band to back him up. (This kept the prices down too.) Any up in Rochester NH. he was booked at the Rochester City Hall. I was about 14 at the time and was sitting about four rows back. Webb was taking a short break and told a little story. He told us of a show he did where a little boy came to the stage with a note from his mother. Thinking it was a request he opened the note. The note only explained that his fly was unzipped. He turned to the back and of course zipped up. So what happened this time is he said that just in case he was going to check it out before playing any further. He turned his back and only then remembered that this Tim HE WAS WORKING WITH AN ALL GIRL BAND!! What a riot. I bet he found another gimmick after that. I enjoyed your page.
Harold A. Chamberlin from Wolfeboro NH.
What a great story! Poor Webb!!
From: brucesnow@fakename.net (Bruce)
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1999 14:08:04 -0600 (CST)
To: joesixpack@slipcue.com
Subject: Webb Pierce
Joe please tell me if this singer is in
the country music hall of fame, I have
searched and searched, no results.
Pleeeeaaaassseeee tell me. If he is'nt
tell me why? Your friend in Missouri.
Bruce.
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 13:51:17 EDT
Subject: Webb!
To: joesixpack@slipcue.com
Dear Joe,
What can we do to correct the terrible injustice done to not only Webb
Pierce, but also Carl Smith, Faron Young, Sonny James, and Ferlin Husky? All
need in the Country Music Hall of Fame, and none more than Webb Pierce. When
I was growing up in west Texas, Webb was the absolute king of country music.
To me the hall of fame will only be a bad joke until these oversights are
corrected.
Good to know there's some other Webb Pierce fanatics out there.
James
Brother, you don't know the half of it...! Anyway, Webb Pierce was indeed not inducted into the Country Music Hall Of Fame for many, many years. Here's an e-mail correspondence I had with a musician in Kentucky who shed some light on the reasons why...
Subject: Re: webb vs. ralph
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 23:02:56 GMT
From: "Nightcricket 99"
To: joesixpack@slipcue.com
CC: jsh@fakename.com
you wrote:
>I'm curious to hear about Ralph Emery blocking Webb's entry into the Hall
>of Fame, and was wondering if you could tell me more about it... I have a
>"Webb Site" fan page & have had several readers ask me what was up with
>Webb's non-induction...
=== A few years ago I spoke to an ex-Nashville session player named Theron Gooslin, who told me that Ralph Emery has publicly stated "Webb Pierce will never be in the Hall of Fame as long as I have any say in it." Gooslin didn't know Emery's reasons, though. The Osborne Brother who doesn't perform with the Osborne Brothers band but books their shows - can't remember his name offhand - said on the BGRASS-L mailing list that he'd heard the same thing, but didn't know Emery's reasons, either.
Jeffrey Scott Holland
p.s. what's the url for your Webb site? I'd love to see it! I have a low-budget rockabilly-country-western swing band here in Kentucky and Webb's "You're Not Mine Anymore" and "Sneakin' All Around" are regulars in our sets....
[Note: it's funny how Emery never mentioned his distain for Webb Pierce in his skimpy autobiography... But it seems to have been the stuff of legends in the Nashville of years gone by. On a related note, not long after this e-mail exchange, I picked up a scratchy vinyl copy of an appearance Webb did on Emery's syndicated radio show, in 1975, after he had been dumped by MCA and was making a go of it on the tiny Plantation label. Emery was remarkably snide and rude to Webb throughout the entire interview... my jaw dropped the first time I heard it! Of course, the last laugh is on Emery: In 2001, Webb was in fact inducted into the The Country Music Hall Of Fame -- a decade after he passed away, and nearly fifty years after his first big hit. Rest easy, big fella.
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 16:26:08 EDT
To: joesixpack@slipcue.com
From: Wm631@fakename.com
Subject: your webb pierce page
Enjoyed it immensely. The discography is invaluable in itself and please
keep the web page alive for awhile for reference purposes (and I hope Bear
Family or Decca or some bright organization that eventually releases his
later-fifties and sixties material uses it for details and opinions) and
the bio. is fresh and sharpley written. I was'nt the biggest fan of his
music (the voice does'nt exactly insinuate itself to you ) but my respect
and gradual admiration for his work due to his track record, showmanship and
unerring sense of songwriters and trends (plus his respect for his fans)
leave me dumbfounded at the CMA for it's exclusion from the Hall
Of Fame. The man was an original and a giant in the business and I say
that as a hippie generation disciple who simply appreciates good music,
regardless the opinions or conventional popular esteem. Hell, the man
was even the original with that wonderfully ridiculous pool and car! (and
his response to Ray Steven's hissy fit over the sight-seeing fans
should endear him forever to country music lovers). Anyway, I've vented my
spleen on behalf of an unjustly ignored figure who's amazing influence
and body of work will last. Thanks again for the page. -William Marshall
P.S. You might be interested in a fairly new book by Horace
Logan, the general manager of the legendary "Louisiana Hayride" programs.
He has some nice things to say about Pierce in it. As does Jan Howard
in her autobiography "Sunshine and Shadows".
Couldn't agree more strongly... but wait! There's more!
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 11:01:38 EST
To: joesixpack@slipcue.com
From: Wm631@fakename.com
Subject: Re: your webb pierce page
Joe: Regarding your note on the 19th; I'm glad you mentioned Wayne Walker,
one of my dark horse favorites from the Nashville songwriting years. I don't
know much more than you except that I kept noticing his name on various Lefty
Frizzell records (not a bad judge of songwriting there) including "No One To
Talk To (But The Blues}" and a drop-dead gorgeous piece of Nashville
country-pop in 1962 titled "Stranger", which I found buried years ago on the
"Saginaw, Michigan" lp. Also, the best cut on the best and most
unsentimental Don McLean lp ("Playin' Favorites"/1973 - all country blues and
bluegrass/worth checking out) was a wonderful version of "Ancient History"
co-written by Walker and Stanton, who, not coincidentally co-wrote
"Stranger". Wayne Walker has a write-up in the relatively new CMA
"Encyclopedia Of Country Music" - it's in the bookstores now , and the only
reference I've seen to that excellent writer. Regarding Skeeter Davis, I
have'nt checked out your page yet but my interest started with her her
autobiography which led to the fine 2 cd collection of the Davis Sisters by
RCA. What a heartbreaking loss that duo was and would have been - Betty Jack
Davis was a lead singer who I think would have developed into a Patsy Cline;
the voice and ability were certainly evident and Skeeter was a brilliant
harmony singer even then. Finally, if you have'nt already and can't afford
the cost of the (I think) essential Willie Nelson box set of "Nashville Was
The Roughest..." an extraordinary example of how Nashville (Chet Atkins and
Co.) were the best,least yet often most interesting music makers of the 60's
(hey, at least they kept trying new approaches and it's all crystallized
right in this here box set) then treat yourself to the newly remastered and
released "Country Willie" cd from the Nashville sessions of April, 1965.
It's as lean and austere, yet beautifully played as anything Nelson or Atkins
ever attempted, years ahead of it's time, all definitive remakes superbly
sung by a deeper-voiced Nelson with back-up by Jerry Kennedy and Jerry Reed
.... and the lp fell on it's face when it came out. I discovered the lp
years ago from a friend during Nelson's "Stardust" years and it was a
revelation. Along with discovering Haggard, country Jerry Lee, rediscovering
the Carters and Ray Charles ( my mother had his first country album and would
try to sing off-key versions of "Your Cheatin' Heart" to me ad-nauseam) it
awakened me to the fact that there was a great deal more intelligence and
thought in "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" than I had allowed myself to
understand during those smuger hippie years. And I've been a staunch
defender of "The Beverly Hillbillies", ever since. I'll talk to you later...
-William Marshall
Anyone?
From: Hilary Mosberg (claymos@fakename.net)
To: joesixpack@slipcue.com
Subject: Webbarama
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000 17:10:48 -0800
Yo Joe....The Webb Site is brilliant...I didn't think anyone else had
such purient intrest in this great nasal nabob
Nothin' dorky about old Webb or those excellent Nudisuits he
owned...however those poses he struck for the
camera either makes one laught out loud or long to pinch those wholesome
cheeks. Nothin' at all wrong with a
little flamboyant audaciousness when you posess such talent.
Regards, John Clayton& Hilary Mosberg
THANKS...! (I think...)
Subject: webb!!
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 07:47:06 EDT
From: MarkBSTI@fakename.com
To: joesixpack@slipcue.com
Hey Joe Sixpack!
just want to congratulate you on a truly terrific "Webb Site" I in fact just
finished putting together a compilation disc affectionately titled "World
Wide Webb" Also am in a band here in the Boston area that actually plays his music!
If you ever come out east check us out LONESOME JUKEBOX I am downloading
some of the photos from your page...Thanx again! Mark Bryant
Always glad to hear from any Webb fans!
Subject: Webb Pierce
Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2000 09:41:29 EDT
From: AndyAlfor@fakename.com
To: joesixpack@slipcue.com
I love your page.I am 42 and fell in love with the mans music about 20 years
ago.I saw him in concert about 1981.He was out of this world.He signed a
dollar bill for me that night.He was very kind.
Andy
Subject: Webb Pierce Page
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 01:44:49 -0500
From: "Jean Rice"
To:
I grew up in Webb's house until I was a teen, my mother was his personal secretary. I have been telling my boyfriend stories about "the life" then but he didn't quite believe me. We ran across your webpage which confirmed the guitar shaped swimming pool, which as kids we sold vials of water from for $5.00 each to unsuspecting tourists from the buses. It also confirmed the Pontiac Bonneville that was laden with coins, guns, bullets, and horseheads. I am really glad that someone appreciates Webb even though he was the ***hole that he was. Keep on keeping on! Jean-
Hey... she said it... not me!!
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