He settled in Portland for a long time before coming back to San Antonio for a few months. He's now based in Pacific Grove, Calif. Walker also introduced a year-old Grayzell to Elvis Presley. Grayzell and his band were playing a supermarket opening in San Antonio.
Presley stopped by the gig. Presley was impressed with Grayzell and asked the youngster from South San to go on the road as his opening act. I knew from the first time I saw him in that grocery store parking lot that he was going to be a big star. I asked Elvis what he used to keep his voice so smooth. He told me he used Pine Bros. Five decades down the line, Pine Bros. Pine Bros. An advertising flier states, "That's even older than Rudy! I wanted somebody who had a great sense of humor and enormous charisma.
You need that to cut through the flotsam that's out there. Rudy can do that. He's one of a kind. He's almost electric in his energy. I was hoping we'd do more than just one record, "Judy". By the way, that wasn't about the Judy who got me in trouble with the sheep! Actually, only Roland Janes appears from the Killer's group. By the end of '58 Rudy had relocated to California where he hooked up with the Award label, for whom San Antonio wildcat and ex-bandmate Eddie Dugosh also recorded.
Me and Eddie were workin' San Jose, California in ' We were stayin' at the same place and we had a party and Roy, my drummer, he gets this mannequin.
Now dig this: we're asleep, me and Eddie - half drunk - and Roy puts this dummy between us. The funny thing was - thank God - Roy didn't have any film in the camera! You coulda printed that picture - imagine what that'd do for my popularity! This wacky disc is peppered with machine gun sound effects and has a vocal group called the Scarlets doin' some crazy falsetto work behind his Coasters-type delivery, while Rudy's new combo the Thunderbirds pound out the rhythm.
Considering how strangely unique and truly oddball the Award disc is, it's all the more wild that Elvis' right hand dingaling Red West ended up covering it on the Jaro label. Anyway, we became good friends and would check out each other's shows. It was a shame what happened to him and Buddy and the Bopper. After that I started doing "La Bamba" in my shows as a tribute to Ritchie.
I played it in the clubs in L. Now, I dunno if he got it from me, but he was definitely there every night. Even though he cut some demos for small West coast labels that he can't recall, the Award disc would unfortunately be Rudy's last rock 'n' roll recording. By , Rudy had relocated to Oregon. The Wailers, remember them? Wild, baby! It was a mistake, I admit it. If I could do it again, I'd never have quit makin' the kinda music I like.
He rushes a visitor over to a makeshift shrine, a paneled wall plastered with the march of his personal history: Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ritchie Valens - he knew them all. There's a poster advertising his appearance at the Hemsby Rock and Roll Weekenders, a huge, twice-yearly festival of early rock culture on the English coast. And there he is, draped with the left arm of a young Elvis Presley, the collar - and the lip - of the future king rakishly upturned.
He grabs an acoustic guitar to demonstrate how he and Roy Orbison stumbled across a new sound out back of a Shreveport, LA, motel room one night in the early '50s.
You know, dance halls," he says. He strums a country rhythm, then abandons it for a jumpier tempo akin to a horse at a gallop. I did it by accident. Grayzell was getting ready to record for Abbott Records when Charlie Walker, a disc jockey in San Antonio, tipped him off to a possible gig. He's got country bands opening for him, and he doesn't like 'em. Is that OK? I had goose bumps when I met him. He threw his arm around me. He said, 'How'd you like to go out on tour?
The 5-foot 6-inch Grayzell looks like he could still box or play the middle infield as he did as a scrappy Mexican-American youth in San Antonio. Born Rudolfo Jimenez, he's a disarming charmer who revels in retelling bawdy tales of alcohol-fueled misadventures involving public nudity, angry hermaphrodites and run-ins with the law. He raced through five marriages to women he calls his "best friends. He was there in the day.
He almost made it. Last spring, Wallace assembled a group able to play authentic rockabilly behind Grayzell for a show at Duff's Garage, a venue which leans toward American roots music. They really want to hear the original material. He put on quite a show! That guy was WILD! This one night he called my whole band out in front of the parking lot and beat up all four guys at once!
I was a nice guy! Squeaky La Beef? I don't remember him, but who knows? Hey, I'm five-foot-six. Baby, if I beat up four guys, they'd have hadda been real small guys! I bet he's thinking' of Billy Frizzell, Lefty's brother.
A singer, accompanying himself on guitar, stands in front of the plastic dartboard in a Portland neighborhood bar and restaurant called the Jolly Roger. After a while he takes a break from country-western standards to perform a song of his own. But it doesn't make much of an impression on the patrons, most of whom are unaware of Grayzell's reputation as one of the unsung pioneers of rock.
At the end of the set he walks through the room, receiving backslaps from the regulars as he heads for the bar. Though still a teenager, he appeared on some of the most prestigious shows in the south, including the Louisiana Hayride and the Grand Ole Opry. But he wasn't satisfied playing straight country: Other elements were reshaping his music. Grayzell wasn't the only one.
Throughout the South, white country boys were hot-wiring their sound with black rhythm and blues, creating the menacing and blatantly erotic hybrid out of which rock 'n' roll evolved.
And Grayzell was among the first. It was the kind of music he was playing around his native San Antonio when a stranger stopped by one night to check out his performance. He looked like something from outerspace. The man was Elvis Presley. He was at the peak of his powers and blazing his first trail through Texas. He also happened to be looking for a support act. A hot tip from singer Charlie Walker led him to the Club where Grayzell was performing.
Elvis offered Grayzell the job on the spot. Grayzell had been crowned by the king of rock 'n' roll. Don't mess with the ducktail For a year and a half Grayzell was on and off the road with Elvis. It was a transforming experience, and soon he was cranking out his own high-voltage brand of rockabilly on the Starday label. The proprietary stance invites comparison with "Blue Suede Shoes.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, and I guess a lot of other people thought so, too.
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