Marshall Grant K-4

[Donald]

Always glad to talk with you Wayne. I admire your record keeping. I never did except for some pictures. I attach a couple of JB when he came to Depue. That's Bruce Nicholson on the left.2011boatrace406.jpg

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[Master Oil Racing Team]

Been busy the last week Ralph. I'll give you a call this week. In the meantime I want to share some photos I had intended to post way before now.

I'm sorry we didn't post a bunch of stuff on the thread dedicated to Marshall prior to his passing, but there is much scattered around all over the place. These pics now are beginning at the end of Marshall's life, but the tributes to his accomplishements will go on.

This first pic is Joe and I taking off from Houston Hobby to Memphis. The shadow is our airplane. It's hard enough to make arrangements to get to the funerals of our friends in other states, but as Joe and I talked...we both knew we had to be there. I have known that fact for many years. As we talked on the way, Joe told me the same. It is hard for Joe to take off too, but at least he doesn't do 24/7 call. We get to the airport early, and as we were taking off, I saw the shadow lifting off with us and I thought to myself, I don't ever recall noticing that before from a flight, so I snapped the pic. Marshall was going home and Joe and I were going to be there to help send him off.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I wish the Marshall Grant threads could all be together, and I couldn't decide where to go with the next pictures, so I decided to continue here.

I know Joe and I posted some things about the funeral somewhere,(or maybe we didn't and just said we were ) Randy told us to join the family, and we got to talk to Randy, Etta, the Statler Brothers, Denny Strickland, who Marshall was working with, and others before the funeral started. I didn't take any photos there out of respect for Etta, Randy and Marshall. They've been around the media types their whole life and there were a bunch of music people there so I figured it would be best to keep my camera in the car.

We had a lot of time to kill after the funeral. When you try to book a flight at the last minute and couple it with getting on the same flight with someone 200 miles away, you don't always get the best schedule.

Joe was prepared though. He had thought ahead and had a quickly built intenerary for us. He looked up Marshall's address from his book and punched it in to his lady friend on the GPS. If Joe didn't follow her directions though she could be real snotty..

We found Marshall's house very easily. I was surprised. I always think about Johnny Cash's old house and thought Marshall also lived in a wood clapboard house in the early years. Not so. I don't remember the scene of the house from the movie WALK THE LINE because movie people always change real situations up to make a more dramatic effect. But this is the house that Marshall, Johnny Cash, and Luther Perkins did a lot of practice and rehearsals in prior to going to Sun Studios for their first recording session. I don't know if they ever wrote any songs there, but this is one of the main places they worked out the songs John wrote and others wrote for him.

The day after we got home Joe called Etta to see how she was doing, and she was holding up fine. She is a very strong woman. Joe told her we went to their old house and she said, "Joe.....why didn't you tell me you were going there? I would have given you the key." They have it kept up and that's where Marshall would give interviews. It's still got the same furniture and look from those days. I believe Marshall and Etta moved to their new house across the border into Mississipi around 1973 or early 1974.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Joe knew the route from Marshall's house to his place of work by talking to Marshall many times, and what Marshall told him.

We only made just a couple of jogs from Marhall's house until we got on Union Avenue. Then it was a straight drive down Union to where Marshall worked as a mechanic along with Luther Perkins and Johnny Cash's older brother Roy.

Almost all the time Marshall was the one to open up the store, arriving before 6:00 a.m. After Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two had recorded HEY PORTER at SUN. they listened on the radio. The first time it was played was in the early morning hours by a DJ who went by the name of Sleepy Eyed John.. I have to ask Joe what he said, but he said there was a new band and they had this song, then he played HEY PORTER.

When Marshall heard that.....he pulled over to the side of the road. He was about a block and a half from SUN RECORDS, and where he worked was just a couple of blocks further down. It was fifteen minutes before he could collect his thoughts and when he got to Commercial Motors his friends shouted "Did you hear it Marshall?...Did you hear it?"

We planned to stop about where Marshall did when he first heard the Johnny Cash sound, but apparently the roads, business, and times are different now, and there was no place to pull over. Joe stopped the airport rental car briefly in about the spot where we figured Marshall pulled over to pull himself together after such an overwhelming experience.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

This is where it all began for Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis and a lot of others. Sun Studio is a tiny little place. The entrance on the corner, and what is now part of the Sun museum and shop was a small restaurant when Sam Phillips was recording all these great artists. The walls were thin and customers could hear the music that was being recorded. A lot of the customers, no doubt, were fellow musicians. What a historical meal some of those patrons must have had. The full tour took almost two hours, so Joe and I were not able to do it because of our flight time.

Check out the name of the little side street at the entrance of Sun. There is a sign on the sidewalk that tells people not to stand in the street, but to get the full picture of Sun without a fisheye or other very wide angle lens you have to stand in the street. That's what I did along with the other picture takers.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

"....so I guess I oughta know." That was the tune that Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two played for Sam Phillips at their audition and he told them gospel wouldn't sell. I suppose Sam thought there was some possibilities, but he always could make money recording would be artists so he asked if they had anything else. They played "Hey Porter". Sam like it and said they need a "B" side and he wanted a song to cry by, so Johnny Cash wrote the tune "Cry..Cry..Cry!"

I always thought Sun Studios was a couple of blocks down and around a corner from where Marshall worked, but it was really just a little bit further down Union. Joe and I drove on down, checking addresses and we found it. The building was still there, but it was no longer a car dealership.

"[I]Automobile Sales at the time was the world's largest Desoto-Plymouth dealership, with twenty-three mechanics working in the sservice department. In the summer of 1953, the company hired a mechanic---a tall, slim, black-headed guy, who went to work on the opposite side of the shop. After a couple of days, I decided I would go over and introduce myself. "Say man," I said, "I been seeing you over here, and I've intended to come over and introduce myself, but I just haven 't gotten around to it. My name is Marshall Grant" The lanky fellow stuck out his hand. "My name's Luther Perkins. Glad to meet ya."

That was page 23, chapter 1 of Marshall's book, and the opening of his story. I wish either one of us would have asked which bay Marshall or Luther worked in when Johnny first came into the shop to see his brother Roy and was introduced to Marshall and Luther.

It was a sad trip, but also one to see so many pay tribute to a multitalented friend and loved by many. The last two photos are a departing shot of the muddy Mississipi on the way home and coming into Houston Hobby southeast of downtown not too far from the Astrodome. Joe and I were proud to represent the boat racers among the many, and Etta and Randy talked with us about many, and especially Billy Seebold.