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Excerpts from Frank Acomb First Interview with Duane Eddy in 2017
Frank:
What do you remember from your time in Corning?
02:30
You weren't here an awfully long time, right?
02:32
Duane:
I was born there and I lived the first five years of my life, and then we moved up to Bath.
02:38
Oh, okay, so it's still right down the road, of course.
02:40
Yeah, it was just up the road, and I had aunts in Horseheads … And then my mother was born in Waverly, and then my father was born down in Pennsylvania, Towanda, just 20 miles south of the border.
02:57
And I had an aunt who was the first, one of the first telephone operators uh in the country, in Elmira.
03:07
Wow, so yeah, you definitely have a lot of connections here to the area.
03:10
I do, I do, and then we moved after Bath, I started my first year of kindergarten in Bath, and then lived there for five years and moved up to Guyanoga which is two miles north of Branchport at the western fork of the Keuka Lake ohh and went to school in Penn Yan for a couple years and then we moved to Arizona.
03:35
But I love that country, I mean the Finger Lakes country is just so beautiful and we've driven through there a few times when we've been back East and I didn't know anybody so nobody to stop and visit but uh I
I do remember we lived down off 2nd Street in a duplex and I remember there was a park across the road well you go out to the end of the road and then down to the main road and then across that main road there used to be a park with a lake and even though I was only between one and five, I mean, well I suppose it was the years between three and five that I remember mostly
04:22
But I remember I got those little double-bladed ice skates and skated on the lake and rode my sled around down the hill there.
04:33
I used to walk with my father every day, every Sunday, to get the newspaper.
04:39
There used to be a little store on the corner
04:43
across the road, the main road.
04:47
And one Sunday I decided, I think it was about four or five, I decided I wanted to go do it on my own.
04:56
And my folk, being the way they were, they thought that was cute and they wanted to teach me to be independent anyway.
05:03
So they let me go.
05:05
They gave me the quarter and told me, he says, Now you know what to do?
05:07
I says, Yep.
05:08
So I went in and gave the guy the quarter and picked up the paper which was heavy.
05:12
Sunday papers were always heavy.
05:16
And while I was waiting across the street, waiting for the light to change, this man came up and started talking, Where are you going, little boy?
05:25
I said, I'm going to get the newspaper.
05:28
And he says, Okay.
05:31
And well, be careful crossing the street.
05:34
And I said, Oh, I will.
05:35
I didn't know it but it was my father disguised (laughter) and he'd been following me the whole way and but I thought I did it all on my own.
05:46
So things like that build confidence and independence.
05:51
That's the way they were all my life… and I had a great childhood up there.
05:55
Oh that's great.
05:56
Now, were you big into the rural lifestyle like the hunting and fishing and all the great things we have to offer in this area?
06:01
Oh yeah, I learned to swim in Keuka Lake and had swimming lessons and you know or they had camp down there and they you could make you'd learn to make a lanyard they call them boondoggles I think but did all that and learn how to swim all the different strokes and it's a good thing to know and it was beautiful I mean the water was cold they're spring-fed lakes but after you're in it for a minute and you're a kid, you don't care.
06:36
No.
06:36
You know I just used to float around out there and just look at those beautiful hills and the vineyards and the apple orchards and the blue sky, puffy clouds, and just, it was just, memories imprinted upon my brain all these years later.
06:57
And my dad worked for COBAKCO Bread.
07:00
He drove a bread truck.
07:04
for several years and had a route all around the area about a hundred miles or so and I went with him a few times and that was the I remember that experience as well going to the bakery and getting the truck I'm sure and the smells of that fresh-baked bread and mixed with the gasoline of the truck it's just…I can still smell it today.
07:34
And then when he went to, when we moved to Bath, he went with NBC bread or whatever it was.
07:44
I’ve got a picture of him in his truck, so.
07:46 Frank:
That's great.
07:47 Frank:
Duane Eddy is our guest this morning, of course, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member and Corning native.
07:51
So around what time in the process did you take up the guitar?
07:56 Duane:
Just as we moved to Bath, when we moved up there, We were down in the cellar, my dad was checking out the heater.
08:05
In those days they had a chute.
08:07
The coal truck would come up and fill up the bin with coal and then he'd shovel it into the furnace and that was our heat for the house.
08:17
And so he was down there checking out and I was with him and I looked over, leaned against the wall, hadn't been put away, was a guitar.
08:27
And I said, What is that?
08:29
He said, It's a guitar.
08:31
And I said, How does it work?
08:34
And so he showed me a couple three chords and he says, I used it to court your mother.
08:40
And so I learned a few chords.
08:44
Then I went to the theater there and saw Gene Autry and Roy Rogers movies.
08:50
And I loved the music in them.
08:51
And so I just do my best, level best, to learn more chords.
08:59
Didn't know you could play up the neck till I was about nine.
09:03
That was a big revelation.
09:05
And I just used to sing Happy Birthday to my friends and everything and sing Hank Williams songs.
09:13
I just grew up with it in my hands, more or less.
09:17
Started working when I was 15.
09:19 Frank:
Well, how did you know that you were going to go into guitar?
09:22
I mean, you say you're working at 15, how did you know when that was going to be your profession?
09:27 Duane:
I didn't.
09:29
I didn't right then, I just, my dad had switched over…
09:34
When we moved to Tucson, he went to work for Safeway Stores, which is a huge chain out there.
09:41
I think they have them back East as well, I'm not sure.
09:45
He was assistant manager in Tucson and then they gave him his own store in a little town called Coolidge, which is out in the middle of the desert halfway between Tucson and Phoenix.
09:55
But they had a little radio station, and the DJ came in and my dad said, my son plays his guitar, like dads will do.
10:03
And so the DJ, his name was Jim Doyle, he came out to -- he worked at the station.
10:10
He said, Bring him out and we'll tape something.
10:15
We'll put something on tape and if it works out okay, I'll play it on my morning show.
10:20
So we did and he did.
10:23
Kids rushed up to me at school the first day and said, You want to come to my house and play music?
10:30
And his name was Jimmy Delbridge, and he later changed it to Jimmy Dell.
10:35
And he and I, …he played piano, I played guitar and we sang country songs together, harmony, like the Everly Brothers.
10:45
We hadn't heard of them and when we did hear them, we quit. (laugh)
10:50
No, it was well actually it quit before that… but we did that for a while and went to Phoenix and got on the local talent show and I met the guys up there and then I was getting out of school I was turning 18 I moved up there and started working in that and then I got the job in the band and played on TV and ballrooms on Saturday night and I was in just in the backup band and Then Lee, Lee Hazlewood, my first producer, in the meantime, back a couple of years before that, uh we're still in Coolidge, Jim Doyle, left town and went to a bigger market.
11:39
And Lee was just coming out of radio school, Columbia Broadcasting School, and they tried to place their graduates, so they heard about this opening and here he came, they sent him to Coolidge.
11:56
And so he heard Jimmy and I and singing and he made a little record, he wrote these songs that weren't too great and made this record that wasn't too great but we had fun doing it.
12:08
And nothing happened with it but he went on to …and then he changed markets and moved to Phoenix and… actually about the same time I did and then produced a record on Sanford Clark called The Fool in 1956 that was a top 10 record on Dot Records.
12:27
And then he worked for Dot for a while, he moved to Hollywood, and then he came back and started recording in 1957, Everybody.
12:36
And Raunchy became a hit in '57, instrumental.
12:42
And so he said, well, maybe we should try an instrumental.
12:46
And I was the only one he hadn't signed who didn't sing.
12:50
I had quit singing and pretty much and just played.
12:56
And so he says, go home and write something.
12:58
So I went home and wrote a song and he cut it and put it out and sent it to a label in Philadelphia.
13:04
They put it out and it got up to number 70 on Billboard.
13:08
And so they said, go back in, do some more.
13:11
And I went back in March of '58 and recorded Rebel Rouser and The rest is history, as they say.
13:17 Frank:
Right.
13:18
Duane Eddy is our guest this morning on Frankly Speaking.
13:21
So what is it like when Rebel Rouser comes out?
13:24 Duane:
Well, the whole album, a huge hit, six hit singles, stayed on the charts 82 weeks.
13:28
What's that time in your life like?
13:31 Duane:
Hectic in a word, because I was immediately sent out first for promotion and to do, you know, Dick Clark TV shows and Alan Freed shows and those were the big DJs back then in New York and Philadelphia.
13:48
And then I went and visited all disc jockeys up and down the East Coast and so forth, because that's where the record label was.
13:57
And then the record, when the record broke, of course, well then they started, they put me to work first in clubs, then on big shows, and then I did the Brooklyn Fox with Alan Freed.
14:09
And the Dick Clark Saturday Night Show and the Beach Night show, which was a half hour of actually all the acts were there live.
14:21
They weren't playing because they didn't have the sound together back then on TV.
14:27
But so we'd mime our records and our hits and be myself and Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson, Bobby Darin, people like that.
14:39 Frank:
Wow.
14:39 Duane:
The Everly Brothers, so forth.
14:42
And we'd have an audience of 62 million because there was only three channels.
14:50
And everybody watched that show, most of the bulk of the TV watchers and so they had the highest ratings.
14:57
But nowadays to get 62 million to watch something would have to be, Either I guess the Academy Awards or the Super Bowl.
15:08 Frank:
Wow.
15:09
Then you named so many amazing people that you worked with.
15:11
What was it like?
15:12
Was it just a job?
15:14
You went in, you did your job
or were all these people probably very unique to spend day in and day out with?
15:20 Duane
Oh, it became a profession for me.
15:23
I prided myself on being a professional, doing it, you know, doing, giving it my best, everything I did …
15:33
and leaving nothing to chance and so forth … as any good professional does and knowing what was expected of me and delivering and I had the best band in the country for a while there and the highest paid as well and we toured all over America we went to England in 1960 and that was… They took to me like Elvis.
16:06
It was an amazing experience.
16:08
And went to Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Australia.
16:14
20,000 people met us at the airport in Australia.
16:18
So that was both times we went, '59 and '60.
16:23
So it was pretty exciting, pretty exciting being a rock and roll
16:28
star in the '50s and '60s, early '60s.
16:32 Frank:
I would think so.
16:32
How do you wear the label when people tell you that you're one of the founders, you know, of rock and roll?
16:37
How do you take that?
16:38 Duane:
Well, let me just say this, I'm a pioneer.
16:42 Frank:
It's got to feel pretty good, right?
16:45 Duane:
My folks, my family came to this country from England in 1630.
16:52
And my mother's…that's my father's side, the Eddys, and they came on a ship called the Hand Maiden and landed at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts.
17:03
They bought a farm and started farming there, and my mother's side of the family came eight years later, also from the same county but a different place.
17:12
They didn't know each other until my mom and dad met, but they lived there for several years, they moved to Connecticut, and then they moved down to Bradford County, Pennsylvania over the next couple of hundred years at different times.
17:26
And then they were both in Bradford County there, in Towanda and Waverly.
17:30
And my dad and mom met at a dance and fell in love.
17:36
And that's how the families got together.
17:40
So they were pioneers.
17:42
The Eddys have been pioneers for centuries.
17:48 Frank:
Yeah, that's for sure.
17:50
It's interesting, too, with the connection to rock and roll, because obviously you're an example of having that huge influence of country music.
17:56
You mentioned Hank Williams, of course, Gene Autry.
17:59
So I mean, without country music, there is no rock and roll.
18:02 Duane:
That's right.
18:03
And I just found out a few years back that because it's the same thing that Jimmy and I called it, we called it hopped-up country that we were doing
18:14
and because we were doing up-tempo country songs and just kind of rocking it a little a little like rockabilly although we hadn't been named right nothing had been there was no rock and roll or rockabilly yet so we called it hopped-up country and I just found out recently that Elvis called it that too he said oh “I'll just do a little hopped up country” and the Sun Records stuff and so Yes, if there'd been no country.
18:44
And then, of course, Elvis mixed a little Black gospel and white gospel, Southern gospel in it.
18:49
Umm And he defined the whole thing.
18:53
Bill Haley had that big, huge Rock around the Clock from the movie The Year in 1955, and then Elvis got his son's stuff done in '55.
19:03
But that was just under the radar kind of that year.
19:08
But then Steve Schulz signed him to RCA Victor in 1956 and released Heartbreak Hotel, and that broke everything wide open.
19:18
And I saw Elvis in person.
19:22
He came to Phoenix in August of '56, and he'd had Heartbreak Hotel and Hound Dog and a few things like that, Teddy Bear.
19:31
So it was at the Grandstand at Phoenix, hot as can be.
19:37
probably 110 or 15 in the sun but he came around the track there in the car and got out and ran up on stage where Scotty and Bill and JD were already playing and he just jumped into it you know. it was exciting the girls were going crazy climbing the fence they had in front of the grandstand to protect it from any race cars going into the audience on race day yeah It was very exciting.
20:08
Girls are screaming, he's singing, and I thought, man, I see what he's doing.
20:15
I could do that.
20:16
But I didn't know how I'd get an opportunity, and I didn't for another year, but until he said, let's make an instrumental.
20:25
I just kept playing in my country group up until then.
20:28
We did a lot of those songs.
20:29
We did Elvis, and the Everlys came along in 57, Buddy Holly.
20:34
And so we did them all in our dances, you know
Frank:
Corning native and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Duane Eddy is our guest this morning on Frankly Speaking on News Talk 1230 and 1450 on the AM, 106.9 on the FM dial.
20:47
So obviously you're known for that twangy sound.
20:49
How did you come up with that?
20:51Duane:
Well, that's where Hank Williams and the Country artists come in.
20:54
OK, they I just learned by listening to them that you need to get your own sound
21:03
and your own style and do it with authority.
21:09
You know, Because that's what they did.
21:11
They just let it all hang out and just, you know, and Elvis too.
21:16
He did it with authority.
21:18
And they used the template more from Elvis and rock and roll, but I was still in the back of my mind was Hank Williams and Buck Owens and those people that just had that authority.
21:31
And the emotion.
21:32
And I tried to incorporate that all into…
21:35
And I realized from what little recording I had done up to that point, working on other people's sessions a few times, that the bass strings recorded better than the high strings.
21:45
So I thought, well, I'll go down that neighborhood.
21:49
And I knew that riffs were very seldom, you know, the same thing over and over.
21:58
very seldom successful..
22:00
they were sometimes, but you needed a melody.
22:04
So I started the first thing it was kind of half and half of Movin and Groovin was up high and down low.
22:12
But then when we went back and marched and cut Rebel Rouser, I decided to keep it all down low and and have a melody, yeah which I did.
22:23 Frank:
Well, reading up on just your amazing career, and I know that at some point in an interview you had said that, and I think this shows your appreciation for country music, that you said how important it was that you played the Grand Ole Opry with Chet Atkins.
22:36
That must have been just amazing.
22:38 Duane
Oh, that was amazing.
22:40
That was on August 17th, 1996.
22:43
I remember it so well.
22:45
And the producer said we want to do a guitar night.
22:48
We're going to have a chat.
22:49
We'd like to have you and Doyle Dykes and.
22:53
he said you know it's only a half hour long so that's about it and do a couple songs and then so we did that and I I knew Chet by then I met him in 1959 but I didn't really get to know him until later but anyway we did our song Chet did his and Doyle did something and he's a finger picker like Chet but he does it on acoustic more than electric and Then the guy, producer, came and said, well, they're back in the dressing room discussing… they want you to do something altogether.
23:32
And he said, so you better get back here.
23:35
So I ran back there, and Chet says, we're going to do I Saw the Light in the key of A.
23:43
I thought, OK.
23:47
That's it.
23:48
We're not going to run through it or anything?
23:51
Talk about who goes first? we didn't.
23:55
We just.
23:56
But it was time to go on stage, and we went out and plugged in.
23:59
Chet says, well, let Duane take the first verse.
24:05
Because everybody knows the chorus of I Saw the Light, but unless you know Hank Williams, I don't know the song, you don't know the first verse.
24:14
So he wasn't trying to mess me up.
24:17
He just thought, I guess maybe it was half a test or something, I don't know.
24:22
But anyway, he went…booom boom boom ching boom ching… so I started playing the melody on I Saw the Light and when he came in on the chorus I just nearly came out of my boots because it was so exciting it just zapped me right back to 14 years old listening to him on the radio and when he used to play with Grandpa Jones and the different and Bill Carlisle and those people on the Grand Ole Opry and that thumb picking style of his that galloping guitar he just And he played I Saw the Light.
24:55
And it was just, I was in heaven, hog heaven.
24:59
Here I was on the Grand Ole Opry playing with Chet Atkins, a Hank Williams song.
25:03
Just didn't get any better than that.
25:05 Frank:
No.
25:07
Duane Eddy is our guest this morning.
25:08
Corning native, of course, and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member.
25:11
I keep mentioning the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
25:13
What was that like for you being in the class?
25:15
You know, Ellen John, John Lennon, Bob Marley, Grateful Dead.
25:17
It had to be quite an honor to be in the Hall of Fame.
25:20 Duane:
It was.
25:21
It was really.
25:23
They threatened to put me--- I was nominated several times before they finally just called up and said come on up we're putting you in yeah and of course Bob Marley or John Lennon neither one were there but …and John Fogerty was supposed to induct me because he's a big fan but a couple days and who was it a singers Jeff Beck inducted… can’t remember his name right now.. it's a huge artist but he was going in and Jeff Beck played with him so he inducted him and Fogerty was supposed to induct me but he and… Rod Stewart, that's who it was … and Rod was going in but he and Rod both lived out on Mulholland Drive in California and two days before the event in New York Rock and Roll Hall of Fame they had a huge earthquake and both their houses slid down the hill so they were they didn't nobody got hurt they John said I woke up and I realized it's an earthquake what what do I do oh the kids they kids! and he said I got him and my wife and ran out and watched the house just kind of slide down several feet down the hill and rod the same thing I guess down further down the mountain and his house you know suffered damage so they both checked into the Bel Air hotel and stayed there and they didn't fly back to New York it was too they stayed with their family because it was so traumatic and for the family sure and so Mick Jones a foreigner inducted me okay and that was nice I played my song made my little speech and I looked down and there's John F Kennedy Jr.
27:15
sitting there and looking amazingly handsome and Paul McCartney and Linda were there and Chuck Berry was sitting right there ohh and Deanna of the Belmonts and I sat next to Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton and it just and I just saw everybody I knew practically for my old buddies and people from my era on up to the 90s you know and It’s pretty exciting.
27:51 Frank:
When you mentioned the people that were there from the beginning, how has the music business changed since you first got in?
27:59 Duane:
It's gone through many, many, many changes.
28:01
It started out almost, there were three or four big labels like RCA Victor, Columbia, and Decca, which became universal.
28:16
Anyway, they were the big labels, but there were tons like dot Records and my company Jamie Records, Imperial that Fats Domino was on, and uh just a bunch of independent labels.
28:33
And it was like the Wild West in those days, the independents just, you know, they sent the records to the radio stations all over the country and the DJsin those days used to pick the records they'd go through the ones that came in sometimes a hundred or a hundred fifty two hundred a week and they'd have to listen to all of them and decide which ones they wanted to play and then they all had their charts all over the country they weren't all united then and uh..
29:02
they're all independent the radio stations were independent as well so they'd try something on their audience and what they thought was good and would work, and then the audience would phone in and say, oh I like that, play that again.
29:19
So it might make it on to their little charts and you know say oh Kansas City and then the next town over or something, or another city down Wichita might see their chart and say well I don't have, I've not been playing that record, I'll see how my audience likes it.
29:40
and So they'd have all these charts and billboards from these independent radio stations and a lot of them were different and a lot of them were pretty much the same because it kind of sorted itself out.
29:51
And the audience kind of picked it through what the DJs exposed to them and program directors and everything.
30:01
And then Dick Clark would see that in Philadelphia and he had a nationwide TV show in the afternoon where kids… he just played records and the kids danced to it doing them for an hour or two before the Mickey Mouse Club came on …and so he'd watch these charts until he'd see a record on five or six or eight or ten of them and then he'd start playing it, you know, and once he started playing it everybody in the country heard it and to take off like a scalded dog ,as they say, and just go right up the charts then that that went on that way for several years and then big companies started buying up the small labels got to be a bigger from a three billion dollar business that went to a I don't know 20 30 40 50 billion dollar business a year and in the late 60s. And when the baby boomers hit, they really started selling tons of records, everybody, and the Beatles.
31:14
And of course, Elvis was still the king.
31:19
He's sold over around, well I walked in there a few months after he died and the lady I knew at RCA, Victor, who was in charge of really releasing his product, said well we just shipped a new album of Elvis's this morning and that that put us over the billion mark with that and that's B that's billion with a B and he sold we've sold a billion Elvis records and he's probably closer to over 2 billion by now because that was 35-40 years ago it was in the late seventies anyway so that's that that all changed then the record companies got as some people will do with huge success they got very greedy and they tried to cut the artist out of the deal and just make I don't know… manufactured records …and that didn't really work that was came along in the 80s and 90s And there were different trends along the way.
32:34
The 70's had Disco and and they had heavy metal in the late 60's and that faded and disco came along and that faded.
32:45
I had a hit in the 80's with a group in England called the Art of Noise.
32:49
They were techno pop.
32:52
And they called it.
32:53
Because they did it all on computers mostly.
32:56
And weird noises and everything.
32:59
That's why they call it The Art of Noise.
33:01
And we redid one of my original hits called Peter Gunn, the Henry Mancini song.
33:08
And I had a hit all over the world with that in 1959 and '60.
33:12
And so we redid that in 1985 or '6, and it won a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental of that year.
33:21
And so it was in the top 10 all over the world except in America was in the top 50 because the record company got into trouble with the government by their promotion men were dealing in drugs and stuff like that, payola.
33:42
So they all got fired or arrested and there was no promotion men in the middle of the country, so we lost the record.
33:51
Except on both coasts and there it was #1 everywhere and it got in the top 50 in Billboard.
33:58
So that's the record business.
34:01 Frank:
Duane Eddy is our guest this morning.
34:03
I'm frankly speaking here on Newstalk 1230 and 1450 on the AM dial, 106.9 on the FM dial.
34:09
I know currently you're in Nashville and you've got a lot of great projects going on.
34:11
Could you tell us a little bit about them?
34:13 Duane:
Yes, I have.
34:14
I've been.
34:16
There's been a
34:18
guy came to town he has started this group called the Black Keys about eight years ago or so and had huge hits and sold out stadiums just he and his buddy Pat Kern and anyway he's Dan Auerbach is his name and he's the singer of the group and the guitar player and he came to Nashville and he met some people and he got talking to people and he decided to stay here and he bought a studio and through this guy we all know here in town he's a character and well connected and everything he's a studio owner and engineer he was Johnny Cash's engineer for years and also Jack Clements' engineer, cowboy Jack Cowboy Clements they called him he produced early Jerry Lee Lewis Records, for Sun, he produced Charlie Pride, a country artist, he produced Johnny Cash, and he wrote A Ballad of Teenage Queen, Jack Clement did.
35:31
And anyway, he and Ferguson, Dave Ferguson, the engineer, were best buds, and Dave met Dan and started introducing him to people and so Dan started writing with some of these people and then he wanted to use some live musicians so Fergie got uh the Memphis guys Bobby Wood and Gene Christman and he got them in the studio with Dan and he started writing with Pat McLaughlin who's works with John Prine he wrote with John Prine and he put the sound together and he called me up he says you want to come play on it and I said sure so I went down there and I never left for about three months I'd just go down almost every day and if I didn't play a lead part I'd play a background thing you know a tick a tick thing on my six string bass And so I'm playing on the album, but he finally finished it up and released it.
36:47
And it's already the one song, Shine on Me, is number one in the alt-rock chart in Billboard.
36:55
And I played on King of a One Horse Town and Cherry Bomb.
37:00
And I think I played on a solo on a couple others that I have little solos on, you know.
37:11
But we did a lot more stuff than that, that I did play a lot more on.
37:17
And but he just he just picked the ten that he wanted for this album.
37:25
And they kind of fit it all together.
37:29
And we did some oddball stuff too.
37:32
But that didn't fit the album.
37:35
So the other night we did a show in downtown Nashville at the Station Inn which is a an old bluegrass haunt but Dan came there many many years ago his dad brought him to see a bluegrass group McCurry and the McCurrys family and they're on this new album now I think I know they did some they were did the show with us the other night and sang a couple songs they're either on this or the last one And oh, they're not on this one.
38:09
But anyway, they were there at the show the other night and I was there and we played the whole album and a couple extra things.
38:19 Frank:
That's cool.
38:20 Duane:
And it was very exciting, very good.
38:22
The sound was great and the show was good and the place was packed.
38:29
You couldn't even move hardly.
38:34
So that's what I've been doing.
38:36 Frank:
Duane Eddy is our guest this morning.
38:37
I don't want to keep you all day, but I have to ask you kind of a strange question on this because I've seen a trend.
38:42
You talked about Gene Autry.
38:43
You obviously had the song High Noon and the Ballad of Paladin.
38:47
And I'm a big Western fan.
38:49
Is that what led to this?
38:50
Have you always been a big Western movie and Western TV fan?
38:54 Duane:
Oh yeah, yeah, always.
38:56
I used to go to all those movies.
38:58
Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, The Sons of Pioneers and
39:04
Tim Holt and Wild Bill Elliott and Whip Lash LaRue, Whip Wilson.
39:10
Do you remember all those?
39:11
I don't know where those names come in my brain, but they just popped in there when you mentioned westerns.
39:20
And I did.
39:21
I actually acted in aa movie, a couple of movies.
39:26
One of them was called Thunder Drums, and I met Richard Boone, who did.
39:29
Yeah.
39:30
The Have Gun Will Travel.
39:31
Paladin.
39:32
That's what I was going to get to.
39:33
I wanted to ask what it was like to work with Richard Boone on an episode of Have Gun Will Travel.
39:37
I just recently got into the program, and I'm hooked on it.
39:39
I think the program's wonderful.
39:41
It is.
39:42
It was, you know, and he was amazing.
39:45
He was larger than life, and he was incredibly intelligent and talented.
39:51
And he directed a lot of those as well as acted in them and came up with the concept.
39:58
a whole nine yards and so I did Thunder of Drums with him which was a full grown blown movie and about the cavalry and so we became that was 1961 we became friends and stayed friends until he died in 1981 and of throat cancer but in the meantime 1961 or two I did a couple of Have Gun Will Travel shows and that was weird when I The first one I did, I had to yell up at him a line saying this girl was fighting me and I'm holding her off and I say, What will I do with her, Mr.
40:41
Paladin?
40:43
And I thought, I'm really actually fighting this theory.
40:49
And that was a kick.
40:50
But he was fun to be around, he was just gregarious and just, you know, just always -- everybody loved him.
41:08
Everybody just -- he was bigger than life and he did Big Jake with John Wayne and John Wayne never did another picture without him.
41:17
Yeah.
41:18
Because he told me the one scene they did that big -- he'd kidnapped John Wayne's grandson and they met somewhere to talk about it and John Wayne says you harm my hair on that kid's head I'm gonna kill you I'll hunt you down and kill you Dick says well now he says that just scares me to death and then the director said cut and John Wayne come over and he's rubbing he says man he says I thought we were gonna go at it there for a minute because they're acting they're so much into their parts and Dick is so much into his that it got John Wayne into his.
41:58
He was ready to hit him.
42:02
Which might have been a bad mistake.
42:04
Yeah.
42:06
Anyway, that's...
42:09
I'm glad that you told me all that.
42:10
I just, I think the program's wonderful and it's tough to watch him in Have Gun Will Travel and then see him as a bad guy like in Big Jake because he's just so good in Have Gun Will Travel.
42:19
I know it.
42:20
I loved him as a hero, but the bad stuff But he was he was awful at that.
42:26
I mean, he was just awful.
42:27
You just didn't, you hated him.
42:30
I know.
42:32
But it's funny, I was out there when he did Ombre in Tucson.
42:36
I visited the set and he did those, some of those parts and he was really nasty and everything and mean.
42:46
And then director would say, Cut.
42:52
he'd come over and he'd just he'd be laughing about something and and e'd be telling somebody tell him a joke or say something funny and he'd just fall down laughing and it was just an entirely different personality he could switch it on and off like he didn't always do that but he could yeah it was just fun being around him I loved hanging out and he'd come visit me about once or twice a year and we'd do something nutty like fly to Acapulco to the Caribbean or something and with his brother and his brother's wife and just get a bunch of people together and just party you know I mean just go see something new and different and it's just a great …his brother is a year younger than him or a year older I'm sorry and Bill Boone and So when they got together, it was like 2 big bears.
43:56
And I was, I became an honorary brother at one point and I just had, we just, I just loved them dearly.
44:06
Duane Eddy is our guest this morning.
44:08
I’ve got to mention just before we go that you have such a wonderful fan club that the Duane Eddy Circle, I've been talking to the Secretary Arthur.
44:17
He's helped me so much along the way in this process of reaching out to you.
44:20
They are dedicated.
44:22
I'm telling you this, this newsletter that they send out, I mean this is this should be on the magazine stands.
44:29
I know he's really gotten good at that and he does three or four or five of them a year depending on.
44:35
how much information but I've been working doing a lot lately so every time he gets a bunch of stuff together he puts out a newsletter and they haven't and they're celebrating I'm celebrating my 60th anniversary next year in 2018 they're celebrating their 40th anniversary as a of doing the convention they have a convention every year wow in England where they You know, spend the afternoon watching Duane Eddy videos and listen to the music and they have a live band playing, playing the stuff, playing my songs and they just have a big old time, you know?
45:15
Duayne Eddy has been our guest this morning on Frankly Speaking.
45:18
And of course, before we go, you know, anytime that you're in the area, don't hesitate to contact us.
45:23
Oh, don't worry, I won't.
45:25
I may get up to see the cousins.
45:27
I'm going to try to get up and see them this fall if I can.
45:30
Oh, great.
45:31
I don't know.
45:31
I'm starting to gear up for next year's anniversary.
45:35
Sure.
45:36
So they want to do a documentary.
45:38
They want me to write a book before the end of the year, and I don't know.
45:47
Sounds like a great idea.
45:48
A book's a great idea, but by the end of the year's kind of tough.
45:51
No, I know.
45:51
I'm going to have to just sit here all summer and type away, I guess.
45:56
They'll have an editor and all that.
45:59
Correct me.
46:01
But anyway, well, Frank, I appreciate all this.
46:04
Appreciate you taking so much time.
46:07
I love it.
46:08
I'm so glad that you could do it.
46:09
I can't thank you enough.
46:10
This has really been a highlight for me.
46:13
Well, good.
46:13
I'm glad it has been for me too.
46:15
It's fun.
46:16
It just, I don't know.
46:17
There's you have those ties you never lose with your birthplace.
46:21
You're right.
46:22
You're right.
46:23
And I remember my first my first bio when I had my first hit.
46:29
The guy wrote, Perhaps Corning, New York is unaware.
46:34
Duane Eddy was born there in 1938.
46:39
Then he went on to tell about what I was doing.
46:41
Yeah, that's funny.
46:42
I thought, well, maybe they're not unaware.
46:47
But I mentioned it a lot through my my whole career, you know.
46:51
People always ask you, where were you born?
46:53
Corning, New York.
46:54
The glass company place.
46:55
Yeah, exactly.
46:58
Where they make all that beautiful glass.
47:00
Exactly.
47:01
And they say, well, did you ever go to the factory?
47:05
I said, no, I was too little.
47:08
And I haven't been back for any length of time to take time to go through it.
47:14
Oh, beautiful museum.
47:16
Yeah.
47:16
If you if you do get up this way, try to try to make it to the museum.
47:19
They've got a great museum and you, you know, you can take me there if you got time.
47:23
I guarantee I will.
47:24
You say, you say the word, I'll be there.
47:26
All right.
47:27
We'll have dinner.
47:28
We'll have lunch or something and go see the museum.
47:31
I'd love it.
47:31
I'd love every second.
47:32
All right.
47:33
Well, thanks again and enjoy Duane Eddy Day.
47:37
I am.
47:37
OK.
47:38
I did just did a good interview for my day.
47:43
Well, thanks again.
47:44
Thank you so much, buddy.
47:45
Great talking to you.
47:46
Bye.
47:46
Take care.
47:47
Bye.
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