"Trailer Park Of The Stars"....Yep, being in
country music in the early 60's was really living high on the hog. When
I arrived in Nashville, in 1962, with my recording contract in hand and
a song in my heart...uhhh, and hardly
anything in my pocket, but not to worry...shoot, I could be making up to
a couple hundred dollars a week in no time. Si Siman, my mentor back
in Springfield, Missouri, had agreed to pay me $50 a week to run his
publishing company, Earl Barton Music, and furnished me a one room
office on Music Row. Man, with my first record out, I could be making
twice that in no time! I would go down to Broadway Street and go into
Linebaugh's Restaurant...order a big bowl of chili for 50 cents, eat
that, then fill the bowl back up with Catsup and crumbled up crackers
and eat that, along with a big glass of milk for another 50 cents, and
when all that swelled up with the gas in your stomach...why, you felt
full as a tick. I had rented a bed at Mom Upchurch's boarding house for
musicians out on Boscobel Street, and with the bed came two drawers in a
dresser to put your clothes in which was more than enough to hold what
little I had at the time. Of the $50 a week I was drawing from Si, I
sent $25 of it back to the Ozarks every week, so I had a whole $25 to
live on in style as an aspiring Nashville Recording Star! Now, I'll
have to admit, the first year of that, while I awaited stardom to bring
me the big money, was a little slim. I was 25 years old, weighed
135 pounds, and was tougher than whet leather. I started scouting for
more work, starvation is a mighty motivator, just till the BIG BREAK
would come. I got a job as a night clerk at the Albert Pick Motel,
midnight to 6 in the morning. Then I would take a quick shower, go to
Music Row and work the publishing company, at noon I would go out to
Hutch Carlock's Music City Record Distributing Company and help with the
shipping of phonograph records (sometimes even one of my own records)
to Music Stores all over the Mid South. I would do this til about 6PM,
grab a quick bowl of chili at Linebaugh's, catch a couple hours sleep at
Mom Upchurch's and start the cycle all over again until the weekend
when I had started getting some appearances on the Grand Ole Opry and
ever now and then a road gig at some club. Pretty exciting life of a
Hillbilly Singer, huh? Well, ya know, It was exciting, aside from not
having any money, but, I was in Music! Man, I was living the dream.
After a couple years of that...I saved enough money to move out of Mom
Upchurch's Boarding House for Musicians and move to the Dickerson Road
Mobile Home Park....yes, truly the "Trailer Park Of The Stars". In
1964, this trailer park was full of Opry Stars of all kinds. Next to my
trailer was Norma Jean, just up the street was Don Warden, steel player
for Porter and soon to be road manager for Dolly, Buck Trent was two
trailers down, around the corner and acoss the park was Jimmy Capps and
somewhere in there was Don Reno and his son Ronnie for a short time.
There must have been 15 or 20 others that I cannot remember right now,
kind of our version of "Hotel California" with the Eagles. By 1966, I
had landed the television gigs, the morning show and then my syndicated
"Stan Hitchcock Show" that took me out of the trailer park and into a
real house with no wheels, and my records had started doing well so I
could book out on shows across the country on weekends. So now, instead
of all the odd jobs I was doing to keep the wolf from the door, I was
totally involved in the business of music. Here was how my schedule
went. I would get up at three o'clock, five days a week, be at the tv
studio by 5AM, go on the air live at 6AM to 8 AM, go to breakfast and
then to Music Row to work on my record career, working the phones to
dj's, meeting with booking agents, writing songs, recording, whatever a
hillbilly singer does to keep going. I would get off the air at the TV
station at 8AM on Friday, hit the road as a single, no band at that
time, working with house band wherever I played, do a show on Friday
night somewhere, load up in the early morning after that show, drive all
night to the next gig, do that one on Saturday, load up and drive all
night to the next gig, work a Sunday Matinee at some outdoor music park,
get through and drive back to Nashville getting there just in time to
go on the air at 6AM Monday morning. I loved it. I was totally
immersed in my music, I had a song to sing and the world seemed to want
to listen. This was a great way to grow up in country music, and now,
as I sit here on the front porch of the old farm house, how fortunate I
feel to have been a part of the music of that era, to have lived and
traveled with the greats, to have been there when the hits were being
written, when the great songs were being recorded, to witness the
greatest times that country music will ever know. I am truly
blessed....and for that I am thankful this morning. -Stan
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