R & B Trombone Player

And I was learning the way the guys in the band were so that became a--I don't remember exactly when, but there came a time where I started playing in Clint's band. Clint [Brantley] told me, go on up there and play. So I just went on up there--'cause, you know, for a long time, I'd take my horn and never got a chance to use it. Hey, man, it's getting to be embarrassing. So I just, I wouldn't take my horn a lot of times because, you know, I wasn't gon' play, just sit there and listen. So I eventually got a chance to play. And it was with [Sammy] Coleman. I was standing next to him playing and Shang-A-Lang was another guy that was--his name is Harold Smith. He had played with Little Richard and Otis [Redding] and a lot of the bands in the old days. So they let me. I don't know whether I goofed up or not 'cause I mentally focused out. I remember the first solo that they had--it was "Watermelon Man", and Shane walked over and said, "You gotta take the solo after the next four bars." Out the clear blue sky, he just told me that. And I said, "solo". I think I might have missed two notes coming down 'cause I was trying to say "uh-oh" (laughter), what I'm gonna do? (Laughter). And the first solo I ever took, it always sticks in my mind. If Coleman hadn't told me, he said, "Play half tones until you feel the key and then play 8th and 16 notes when you feel the other part." So I think the song was going in four-four time, and I was in some elongated time. It sounded like a drone going on. And Mr. Shane looked at me and saw the smile and Coleman was just--they just burst out and started laughing. And, well, that--I think that's the beginning of the time I really learned how to sweat on stage. I was sweating. I sweated that whole solo out. But I got through. And I got through with the song, and Shane said, "Well, you gon' take the next solo. Coleman wanna help you at home (unclear). I looked at him (laughter), I looked, "What you mean, going home? You gon' leave me--in my mind, I said, you gon' leave me out here to swim now?" (Laughter) But that's what they did. They left me out there. Coleman went over to the bar, and here I'm standing up there. And in reality, I just wanted to just walk on behind him, but I said, nah, let me stay here. And I stayed there, and that's when I found out I was ready.$$What was the name of the club?$$It's called the "Two Spot."$Being around the Doo Wop guys and, well, and him singing solo too. He worked with the Oscar Mack, James Duncan, Percy Wilts (ph.) and different guys like that around locally. They were all like singing together. It's another guy named Bill Jones who taught Otis [Redding] how to sing that style, and the way I fit in was I used to come up and hang out with Bill Jones' brother. And now, I'm sort of, I'm sort of like a little kid hanging around. I was a insider that way. And I guess my mother and my aunt felt okay 'cause it was Otis [Redding], and Otis' dad was a preacher, and Otis wasn't doing nothing, they thought (laughter). They didn't know, because he--that secret was kept very well. And so I got a chance to be a insider and to be an outsider at the same time. So when they started going to the Douglas and things, I would tag along, and Johnny Jenkins who lived indirectly across the street from my aunt, on the same street, about four houses down and across the street. And Otis and them would come down and rehearse with Johnny and them. Ray Satellite Papa Brown, who was one of the legendary D.J.'s, just coincidentally lived further on down the street. He was about eight houses from where we lived, on the same side. So I could walk straight down to his house, but I knew not to go across--I wasn't allowed over there 'cause they were drinking liquor over there. So I stayed on my side and went on down. And they would see me. I would stand out there, and a couple of times I was actually taking my horn and walked all the way down to the branch. And they'll be playing music, and I'd stand there in the branch and shoot my horn back their way and try and play with 'em. And so I think they paid attention to all of that too, (unclear). Johnny told me one time, he said, they used to watch me do--see what I would be doing next. And then, and I asked him, did (unclear) I ever play a thing. He said, yeah, man, we did, a couple of times we played some songs to see what you gonna do. And say, okay, and then Patty T-Cake--his name was Charles Abrams, he came to bury his sister. He was a drummer and the leader of the band, and he used to--and I asked him the same thing. He said, oh, buddy, you know we were watching you (laughter), just like that. And so I said, hum, I'm glad someone was paying attention in those days. And so eventually, as I was getting older, I'm, I can actually hang out with these guys a little bit more. I'm getting older and now they see that I'm gonna be in the clubs with them, so I'm a shoe-in wherever they start hanging out. That's how our relationship started growing and got closer. And that's just about the time Phil Walden stepped in and start booking Otis and the band. And they formed a partnership, Phil Walden, Allen Walden and Otis Redding. And it was called "Red Wald Music". Red Wald Music now is a production company and talent booking agency and they grew to be one of the largest agencies in the nation. They had all the soul acts booked out of Macon, Georgia. And that's where I fit in and I came in--I was a trumpet player, and they needed bands. They needed musicians. And I knew how to play all the different, different types of music. Boom, there I was.