Buried Treasure, The Mobile Hi is Jimmy and welcome to Buried Treasure there's a reason why calling this collection of songs and stories Buried Because were literally buried in a closet in a recording studio in Nashville for They were discovered by an old Travis Turk who actually recorded these tracks in Moblle, in 1969 and more in Nashville in the following When we both wound up moving Travis recorded the first two albums I recorded in as well
The actual buried was discovered in Buzz Cason's Creative studio about ten years ago Buzz is a producer in Nashville and was the first person to sign me to a recording the universe must have been working because as would have it, Travis had been hired
by as the sound engineer and in-house producer
When Buzz sold Creative Workshop to and Martina There was some cleaning up to do and asked Travis to go the storage room and see if anything was worth saving before he the dumpster bin That's when I got a call from that he had found a sizeable collection of quarter tapes that were
the demos of songs I had written and recorded for Buzz when I was writing for his company
It turned out that were over 125 songs in that pile of tape
Also discovered were the original first Travis had in Mobile And that is where the story of Buried Treasure starts
It was in 1969 when I returned to from my coming-of-age years, living in the French in New
As a 20-year-old and playing in a band in Street Driving East on Highway 90, the song, light of my life in my Ford Falcon, WTIX the mighty 690 was playing the soundtrack of my exodus from New
was caught in a trap, the Beatles were coming together Sly was having a hot in the summertime and Paul Simon was in a clear ring a boxer
I sang along, I knew all songs by heart Hell we'd play them every at our gig on Bourbon Street that long hot when the showbiz bug bit me for the time And I recovered
I knew that the stage was I belonged But staying beneath the brightly lights proved harder I thought about this later but the simple fact was that jobs in my newly chosen profession had become scare that
In one of the most musical on earth The only i could find was playing drums, Something I hadn't done since I was in the St, school marching band, I was 12 It did not that club manager long to figure out that he had
not hired the next Starr
It was the and only job ever was fired from and he was Trying to sort out my future, I to the past I headed back to Eastern shore to try to things out Yep, the prodigal son was home
Before I knew it was at the shipyard working days as an helper And for gigs in the waterfront bars around Royal Street at one morning I spot an ad in the Press Register announcing
Bob Cooke at the Corner bar at the Admiral Sims hotel Bob had been the leader of a great group in New He was a one-of-a-kind I studied him from far early that summer and then we friends when we wound up on the bill at the Bayou Room I was the sorcerer's observing him from a barstool doing his He than anyone, taught me how to work a crowd
I in on his show one night, at the Admiral's Corner and we caught up on his He had left the group and was solo gigs now and happy to be a show again He invited me up that to sit-in The hometown boy was finally in his hometown I became a regular performer and when the cocktail hour piano player moved on, the at the hotel offered me spot
When month was up, I got an offer to headline It could not have come at a better The backdrop to all this was the grim to the War, If you're interested you can read those days in a story entitled Vietnam, Mississippi in my book As it turned out I from college along with solo'ing an airplane for the time If I was to Vietnam, I sure as was gonna see it from a plane
As it out, the war passed me by but the student loans due, did not I was to have a steady job and steady income if I was still in Mobile, It a while but I became a bit of a local attraction Packing the animals corner to fire marshall at weekends 75 max Of course with kind of a following, I started dreaming of the big again and hearing on the radio
thing was, you have to have a record in order to get on the radio Well were no major talent scouts hanging around the Corner in those days so If I wanted to a record to sell at the gig and try to get on radio, I had to find a studio and of pay for the recording myself So way back then before Social had sent us to space and back for information, I let my do the walking through the yellow pages Until I across an ad for Production Sound Studio's Sounded pretty professional to me. I called the studio about the rates and and booked myself a session To make a two-sided, 45 rpm record, always thought that being born on Christmas entitled me to a few lucky and Travis Turk that day in the studio seemed to be one of those
was a DJ on the local country station and an engineer It was there that Travis introduced me to Brown who a studio and supposedly had Nashville connections It out that indeed he did and it was MIlton who gave me my first break
Looking back it's funny the way things out back home was one of the best and luckiest moves I made My luck didn't stop though, Travis moved to Nashville, where he recorded song and my first album But i'm a little ahead of myself Speeding down the to success here, which certainly was not how it all about so we'll just to the Mobile recording's for now
A lot of the tape boxes Travis found, a good of songs I remember recording But also quite a few had slipped my memory But these first two songs I could forget Don't bring me and Abandoned on Tuesday the first two songs I wrote and recorded, My first time in a studio
I sound young That's I was, needless to say these songs for the first time in 40 years was a amazing how they immediately conjured up memories of first experience, of where and how the songs were written Who played on the sessions, who was just hanging the studio What was going on in the world beyond Mobile and how in the can we get there
I think why it's so easy to compare this collection with a treasure But the value of this discovery would be determined by listeners by treasure hunters The example comes to mind for me is Ry Cooder's classic Buena Vista Social Club It was supposed to happen The original idea of having musicians from Mali to Cuba and validate the Afro Cuban roots of Carribean music Turned into a tropical trainwreck, it is all documented in the film by the name When It was finished and had reached amazing and financial Ry says in the opening of the film, quote, you never what the public is gonna buy
I certainly din't even know if the public would hear anything came out of Project Sound Well thanks to a lot of luck, we have dug it up, it off and are to find out
So as the story goes, I made and paid for my It out on the AudioMobile label That record did not get me through any doors of any radio in my old hometown But, it definitely was a move Though I didn't it at the time. Milton provided the launchpad from which my blasted off To where no Mobilean had ever gone So as they say in terms Sound Studio was the port from which I embarked on this journey Which has been a wonderful, amazing and lucky voyage continues to day So to the crew, that great first crew that helped me off the lines, from the Port of Mobile in 1969, To Travis, to Milton, Nick, Johnny and Ricky and I'm sure people I've forgotten, You For sending me on lovely cruise And this is the song that the thing, it's called Don't Bring me Flowers