From the Archives: Tommy Allsup – Legend
Even for Dallas it was a nasty day. Snow mixed with rain on Dec. 3, 1973, and made a slush that kept the bandleader, nearly 70 and in a wheelchair because of a 1969 stroke that paralyzed the right side of his body, waiting in the car until someone brought an umbrella to shield him from the downpour.
Inside the studio were the greatest names in Western swing – Eldon Shamblin, the guitar player; Smokey Dacus, arguably the first drummer in Western swing; and Leon McAuliffe, the steel guitar player for whom the bandleader coined that famous phrase, "Take it away, Leon." They talked and tuned instruments. Mostly, though, they waited.
Merle Haggard, who in 1973 was at his commercial peak, drove all night from Chicago to sing at the session. And who could blame him? This was Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.
Asleep at the Wheel's Ray Benson was there, too. It was the only time Ray would ever meet his hero. The sessions had such an impact on him that he later wrote them into his play, A Ride With Bob.
Bob directed the sessions from his wheelchair. The twinkle in his eyes let everyone know he was happy to be there. And everyone else's eyes? Well, there wasn't a dry one in the studio. He even changed a few of the arrangements. "Let's kick this one off with the fiddles instead of the steel guitar," Wills said.
He was concerned he couldn't let out his famous holler like he wanted. But at the end of a new number, called "When You Leave Amarillo (Turn Out the Lights)," he quietly sang, "cut out the lights."
They were the last words Bob Wills would ever speak on a recording. The next day, Wills had another stroke; he never recovered. In mixing, Tommy Allsup, the producer who helped organize the session, heard Bob's call and turned it up, a nod to his friend.
The album was supposed to be titled Homecoming, but Allsup thought For The Last Time fit better. Released in 1974, the double album is considered one of the greatest Western swing recordings ever made. Only a few years after its release, it was designated as an official document of the genre by the Library of Congress.
That's what Tommy Allsup does. He turns the greats into legends.
A BUSY MAN
There isn't much outside Tommy Allsup's cozy Azle home that hints at his status as a music innovator. In fact, the only clue is a modest sign on the fence: "Allsup Acres." In 2003, after years of living close to the music business in Nashville, Allsup settled here. Until two years ago, he operated a studio in Azle called Common Ground.
Life seems fairly blissful for Allsup. He's been happily married to his wife Caren for six years, and he's a great-grandfather now – he has four great-grandchildren, who probably don't have a clue that he's a living legend.
But Allsup's legendary status is painfully evident to me, and I feel a twinge of nervousness as I pull into his driveway. I remember riding in my dad's pick up as a child and singing along to old tunes like "It's So Easy." I grew up listening to my dad's music – Bob Wills, Jan and Dean, Buddy Holly – and I know it better than anything from my own generation. Allsup knows it, too, because he played it, produced it, wrote it. He created it.
He's a tall man. When we first meet, Allsup's wearing a red button-down shirt with a pair of starched Wrangler jeans. Two dogs, Champ and Candy, mill around the house before going over to Allsup, who scratches them behind their ears. He hashes out his tour schedule and brags on his son, Austin, a Texas country musician whose 2005 release Intensity, turned a few heads in its own right. He's kind and gracious. My jitters subside.
I've spent weeks researching Allsup's life and scribbling it into my notebook. The youngest boy of 13 children, Allsup was born in Owasso, Okla., on Nov. 24, 1931. In the late '40s, he started playing guitar for some of the most famous Western swing bandleaders around, including Johnnie Lee Wills, Bob's brother.
While in town for a few weeks to play guitar in 1958, Allsup met Buddy Holly at Norman Petty's legendary studio in Clovis, N.M. He played guitar on about 10 of Holly's songs (he can't remember the exact number), including the classic "It's So Easy." A lost coin toss kept Allsup off the plane that rook Holly's life in 1959. It's a moment that has been portrayed on stage in Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story and on film in La Bamba.
Since then, he's played on thousands of sessions, produced one of the most indelible songs of the '60s and, in 2000, won a Grammy for his work on Asleep at the Wheel's Ride With Bob.
But Allsup is more than just the sum of his past. He's a constant source of creative energy-a musician who neither faded out nor burned away. ''After the show is when the real fun starts," says Johnny Rogers, a Chicago-based guitarist/vocalist with whom Allsup tours. "He'll stay up late, picking and jamming with people in the hotel room."
Last year, Allsup played more than 150 dates. He taught a guitar seminar in Greece, played the Lincoln Center with the Texas Playboys and toured Great Britain.
For such a heavy workload, Allsup keeps a healthy sense of perspective. He's easygoing, but not blasé – a trait that still makes him a sought-after producer. "I've never seen Tommy get upset or bent out of shape about anything," says Dan Roberts, a country musician, songwriter and friend. "He's able to handle all the curveballs that the music industry throws at him."
Allsup still plays local gigs with Roberts and produces local talent like Tommy Irvin, a local country musician who mixes the honky-tonk sound of Johnny Horton with the rockabilly rhythm and blues of Elvis Presley.
"He's the best producer I've ever worked with," Irvin says. "He's old school – he does the same things from 1957, but he does them right."
Five Essential Tommy Allsup Tracks
1. "It's So Easy/Heartbeat" Buddy Holly – A staple of nearly every Buddy Holly compilation released, the song features a solo by Allsup that is not only progressive for 1958, it's also regarded as one of the greatest guitar solos in rock 'n' roll history.
2. "Bob's Breakdown" Asleep at the Wheel – This is the Grammy winner. Allsup shares the spotlight with a handful of country music's finest, including Floyd Domino, Steve Wariner and Vince Gill on this instrumental track from Asleep at the Wheel's 1999 Ride With Bob disc. As Asleep at the Wheel bandleader Ray Benson has said, Allsup is the glue that ties the rhythm section together.
3. For the Last Time, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys – The final album of Wills' career stands among his earlier output as one of his finest works. Wills directed the sessions from his wheelchair; the band is fine form. A must-have for both serious Western swing fans and those new to the genre.
4. The Gambler, Kenny Rogers – You've probably heard this record a million times, bur it's the perfect example of Allsup's superior session work in the '70s. Tommy plays tic-tac bass here, and it makes the title song.
5. "In the Year 2525'' Zager & Evans – This song's theme hasn't aged well since the turbulent '60s, but Allsup's production work goes a long way in explaining why the song hit No. 1. Listen for the strings in the back – they're students from Odessa Permian High School.
Allsup produced Irvin's 2008 release, Miles To Go Before I Rest, and played bass on the sessions.
"I was listening to the master recordings at a friend's house, and I kept hearing this sound I recognized from the records my grandma played on her hi-fi back in Mesquite, and I realized it was Tommy's bass," Irvin said. "It had the same sound as when Tommy played tic-tac bass on [the Kenny Rogers hit] The Gambler in the '70s. And here it is on my record!"
IT'S SO EASY
It's 1958 and the kid is just back from a tour in England. Well, maybe kid isn't the right word. Buddy Holly is 21 years old and is fast cementing his reputation as one of the most important voices in rock 'n' roll. What sets him apart from many of his rock 'n' roll peers is his songwriting-most performers don't even attempt it, and yet Holly is penning classics like "Peggy Sue," "Everyday" and "That'll Be the Day" with remarkable efficiency.
While in Clovis, N.M., cutting some new songs at Norman Petty's studio, Holly and Petty are listening to a record by the Bowman Brothers during a break. The Bowmans are a regional act with a few hits under their belt. The song is great, but mostly, they're listening to the guitar.
The guitar player, of course, is Tommy Allsup.
"I came into the studio that afternoon and Buddy said to me, 'Norman's been playing some of that stuff you've been on, and, well, I'd like you to come play for me," Allsup remembers.
Allsup took the young Buddy Holly up on his offer and stayed for two weeks to cut new songs.
He played on about 10 tracks in Clovis. On "It's So Easy," a classic by anyone's count, Allsup played a simple, clean guitar solo that professionals and novices alike still try to imitate. It's on the shortlist of greatest rock 'n' roll guitar solos ever committed to tape.
The next night, they cut a sweet tune about missing true love called "Heartbeat." Holly, who always knew just how his songs should sound, had a specific idea for the guitar part. "He asked me if I could do a little Spanish guitar thing on it and I said I could," Allsup confesses with a smile. "I didn't know exactly what he was talking about, but in the Western swing bands, we had played sambas and rumbas, so I came up with something off that."
Holly liked the little lick that Allsup played, and he used it prominently in the song. It's one of the first times a guitar player ever used the whammy bar on a record. It's just one more innovation in music, brought to you by two masters.
"When Holly moved to New York he started adding strings to his music," Allsup says. "He wanted to keep going, didn't want stay in the same place. He was young, but he was very knowledgeable."
Sadly, Holly didn't get the chance to keep going. In the winter of 1959, Holly re-formed the Crickets to tour. In the new lineup were Allsup, drummer Carl Bunch and a bass player named Waylon Jennings.
The tour was called the Winter Dance Parry, and it took the Crickets, along with Frankie Sardo, Dion & the Belmonts, J.P. Richardson (known as the Big Bopper) and Ritchie Valens through the Midwest during one of the coldest stretches of the year. It was a difficult tour, and the temperature rarely went above freezing. When the bus stalled with a broken heating system, Bunch was hospitalized for frostbite. Richardson was battling the flu.
After a Feb. 2 show at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, everyone had had enough. Holly, sick of miserable conditions and behind on his laundry, decided to charter a plane for his band to Fargo, N.D. Jennings gave his seat on the plane to a recovering Richardson.
Ritchie Valens was 17 years old, but he was already a full-fledged star. Both "Donna" and "La Bamba" were hits, and he was sick of the bus, too. He begged Allsup for his seat on the plane, and finally Allsup relented. He produced a half-dollar from his pocket and told Richie to call it in the air. If it was heads, Valens got the seat.
The coin came up heads. The plane went down around 1 a.m. on Feb. 3, 1959. The fatal crash took with it the young lives and genius of Holly, Valens and Richardson. The coin toss saved Allsup's life.
Allsup had given Holly his wallet so he could pick up a letter from his mother at the post office. When the authorities arrived on the scene, they found Allsup's wallet and presumed him among the dead. Initial newspaper reports listed him on the plane until the mistake was corrected. "I was dead for about three hours," Allsup says.
Allsup still honors Holly's memory by playing his music with the help of singer/guitarist Johnny Rogers. "We focus on the music of Buddy," Rogers said. "We just try to do the tunes as close as possible."
Those tunes still find audiences across the world, especially in England, where Holly's music is still regarded by fans with the awe only afforded to legends.
In March, Allsup will travel to Liverpool for "A Liverpool Tribute to Buddy Holly," a show that commemorates the 50th anniversary of Holly's performance there. "He's bigger in England than here in the states," Allsup said. "In England, he's bigger than Elvis Presley. He had hits over there you never heard over here."
In Liverpool, a group of kids were poring over those hits with the ferocity of students studying for their final exams. Those kids, later known as the Beatles, were such devoted fans of Holly and the Crickets that when they performed on the Ed Sullivan Show, John Lennon reverently asked, "Is this the stage Buddy Holly played on?"
In 1990, Allsup, along with Garry Tallent and Max Weinberg of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, accompanied ex-Beatle Paul McCartney for two shows to promote Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story, a long running play that tells the story of Holly's life.
"Thursday and Friday I played with them, and Saturday I was back playing with the Texas Playboys," Allsup says. "It was about the best thing I've ever done in my life."
The Beatles might seem far removed from Bob Wills, but Allsup sees a common thread between Western swing and rock 'n' roll, especially in Holly, who began his career in country music.
"When Buddy Holly came along, Bob Wills was big in the part of the country where Buddy grew up," Allsup points out. "He got a lot of stuff from Bob Wills, you can tell by his songs."
The surest bridge across that gap is the guitar work of Tommy Allsup.
"I sit right in the middle," Allsup says.
HITMAKER
After Holly's death, Allsup played live gigs in California, before his friend, an ex-radio DJ named Snuff Garrett, offered him a job as a session musician for Liberty Records. He played on records by Buddy Knox and Jan and Dean. By 1961, he was head of Liberty's country and western department.
The roster included Bob Wills and Willie Nelson. Allsup produced Nelson's seminal early work, Here's Willie.
Allsup also gave work to new session musicians like Hal Blaine and Glen Campbell, who would both have formidable careers in the '60s and '70s. But Allsup never much cared for the Los Angeles lifestyle. After a few years, he was itching to leave. By 1965, he was out.
Allsup left the security of Los Angeles and moved to Odessa, where he built a studio. While he was there, he spotted Denny Zager and Rick Evans, a folk duo playing at the Midland Holiday Inn.
"We cut a few sides with them before Zager said to Evans, 'Play that weird song,"' Allsup says.
The song was an apocalyptic ballad called "In the Year 2525." Allsup thought it needed some orchestration, so he put a call in to Odessa Permian High School. Students from the high school band added strings to the sound, but the record went largely unnoticed until a DJ in Minneapolis started spinning it. It went to No. 1 in the summer of 1969. Zager & Evans signed to a major label and never had another hit.
"You never really heard from them again," Allsup says between sips of coffee. "I always felt like they might have had another hit if I would have produced them."
MILES AND MILES OF TEXAS
Allsup left Odessa in 1968 to head the country and western department of Metromedia Records in Nashville. It was there that Allsup met a young "postmodern cowboy" named Ray Benson through mutual friend and fiddle player Buddy Spicher.
Benson's band, a new-school Western swing group called Asleep at the Wheel, was looking for a producer to record their debut. And who knew more about Western swing than Tommy Allsup?
"His experience was so wide-ranging," Benson says. "I was 20 years old, and he knew what I didn't. He was invaluable to us at that early stage in our career."
Much like everything Allsup touches, the group's debut, Comin' Right at Ya, is a classic. These days, Asleep at the Wheel is considered a Texas treasure.
Allsup went on to produce four more records for Asleep at the Wheel on United Artists and Capitol Records. He even helped the band find one of their biggest tunes, "Miles and Miles of Texas," at Hank Thompson's publishing offices. “Tommy remembered it, only been cut as a demo,” Benson says. "We found it in the vaults at Hank's office, and, of course, it's one of our signature now songs."
In 1976, after a pilot episode of Austin City Limits featuring old friend Willie Nelson helped the show get on the air, Allsup and the Texas Playboys joined Asleep at the Wheel to play the first official performance of the show on PBS. The legendary series recently entered its 33rd season.
Allsup worked through the '70s as an independent producer and session musician. He has played on 6,700 sessions for some of country music's biggest names, including Charlie Rich, Tammy Wynette, George Jones and Kenny Rogers.
THE GUITAR MAN
Tommy Allsup didn't learn his signature style from years of lessons; he's self-taught. Allsup's father Thomas was a fiddle player. In the late ‘30s and early ‘40s, Allsup's brothers either joined or were drafted into military service His brother, Odell, joined the Army, and Joe, who joined the Navy, was present at the attack on Pearl Harbor. Back in Oklahoma, Tommy learned the guitar so he old play square dances with his father.
With guys as good as Allsup, it’s as much about what he doesn't play as what he does play," Roberts says. "He's got a good feel for how to best serve every song he plays on. You've got to have a lot of soul to play like that."
Allsup does have a lot of soul – and a lot of talent, to boot. Paul McCartney once called Allsup one of the finest guitar players in the world. "Tommy's forgotten more about guitar than the rest of us will ever remember, " Rogers says.
HONKY TONKS
In the '80s, Allsup turned to the nightclub business. He opened the New West Club in 1980, which was located off Camp Bowie Boulevard in Fort Worth. In 1987, he opened Tommy's Heads Up Saloon in Dallas' Deep Ellum. The club was named after that fated coin toss.
Allsup got back into Nashville session work in the '90s, but the city was changing. Traditional was on its way out, and the new blood was on its way in.
If Nashville had lost touch with its roots, the rest of the world was just beginning to take notice. Allsup's rhythm playing on "Bob's Breakdown," a song from the 1999 Asleep at The Wheel album Ride with Bob, earned Allsup, along with Floyd Domino, Larry Franklin, Vince Gill and Steve Wariner, a Grammy in 2000 for Best Country Instrumental Performance.
“Tommy played on the whole album,” Benson says. “He was the glue that pulled that rhythm section together.” The Grammy sits on Allsup's shelf, right next to a trophy from the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame. It's a mantle decoration that proves once and for all this is a home like few others. In his typically good-natured fashion, after he holds the Grammy for a moment, Allsup returns it to its spot with a joke.
"It only took me 50 years to get it." he says.
THE REAL DEAL
There's so much more to Tommy Allsup than his professional career. Take, for example, his sense of humor. He certainly has a wicked one – both Rogers and Irvin have been the victim of his practical jokes.
Or there's Allsup's warmth and kindness. No one I interviewed could go more than three sentences without bringing it up. "I just want to say that he's the most decent, humble, loving man I know," Rogers says. "He's a wonder- full person."
Roberts echoes Rogers' sentiments. "He could be very intimidating if he wanted, but he doesn't have a big ego, Roberts says. "He's from a hard-working family, and he's never forgotten where he came from."
But it's more Allsup's style to give the spotlight to someone else. “Bob Wills and Buddy Holly were the biggest stars I've known,” he says.
He shouldn't sell himself so short.
