Each month Abington Library will feature a favorite book from a faculty, staff member, or student. They will give a brief synopsis of their chosen book. Instructions can be found on the instructions tab or at libguides.asub.edu/VanguardSpotlightBook/Instructions.
Stars of the Rock 'n' Roll Highway by Stars of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Highway
Review by Gage Fears
Growing up around Newport, Arkansas meant massive exposure to music including Sonny Burgess & The Pacers, Portfest, KNBY-KOKR, and many others. Jack Nance and Sonny Burgess were both Newport natives. Sonny would become rockabilly’s “Wild Man” with his Legendary Pacers, touring America and the world, and becoming the house band for the Silver Moon Club in Newport. Jack Nance was a multi-instrumentalist who mostly performed and wrote with Conway Twitty in the early days of his career. He would later become a road manager for artists such as Moody Blues, Elvis Presley, and the Temptations (who once stopped in Walnut Ridge to rest for the night at the now Ridge Resort (formerly owned by the Callahan Family). Portfest brought a lot of talent through the area, and one year, I was lucky enough to see the Marshall Tucker Band there.
Newport lines Arkansas Highway 67, or the Rock ‘n’ Roll Highway 67. It is known for being the route that many Memphis greats such as Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty took to perform in bars, dance halls, and honky-tonks in the 1950s to promote their music. Places such as Bob King’s King of Clubs, where in 1958, Conway Twitty gambled a year of his band’s wages away. About twenty minutes east in Bono, off Highway 63, Elvis performed a concert in the Bono High School Gym on September 6th, 1955. That concert was infamous for being over capacity, and the entire floor collapsed. The Silver Moon Club in Newport was infamous amongst rockabilly musicians and fans. Sonny Burgess (as aforementioned) was the house band there for years. It would be closed in the 1970s due to its illegal gambling and alcohol dealing issues. Of course, that was during a time when gambling was under fire from congressmen. Newport and its surrounding areas were a hotbed for music in the 1950s. From Elvis dancing on the roof of Porky’s Rooftop next to the KNBY-KOKR “Voice of The White River Valley” radio station to B.B. King performing a free concert at the East Side African American School in Tuckerman in the 1970s.
As an original pressing of Ronnie Hawkins’ Rockin spins on my record player, I am reading Stars of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Highway by Victoria Micklish Pasmore. It is a short book, at fifty-one pages long. The book covers a brief biography and quick facts about artists born in Arkansas, such as Johnny Cash, Ronnie Hawkins, and artists that toured the Rock ‘n’ Roll Highway such as Wanda Jackson, and Carl Perkins. The book has a very inviting cover, and is a great contender for being a favorite coffee table book. It includes many artists that many would not know without looking for them such as Charlie Rich, born in Colt Arkansas, who burned John Denver’s CMA Award announcement card live on air in protest of “pop country” in 1975 after Denver had won Entertainer of the Year,
I had gotten the opportunity to speak to Victoria recently and listened to the stories she had to tell. Victoria, a Jonesboro native, grew up loving Elvis Presley and has collected as much of his memorabilia and recordings as possible. Victoria and her husband, Peter were both friends of Louisiana-born Jerry Lee Lewis, known for Great Balls of Fire! Her husband was Jerry Lee’s piano tech for years, and she would eventually become the photographer for his newsletter, Fireball Mail. She had told me, this and many other stories involving the old rockabilly artists like meeting Carl Perkins, seeing Wanda Jackson known as “The Queen of Rockabilly”, Narvel Felts, Johnny Cash, Sonny Burgess and the Pacers all live in concert over the years had a big impact on this title. “This whole book started out as a project for my elementary school students.” Pasmore told me. She was teaching Art at Harrisburg Elementary School, and the faculty had to make student involved projects to teach young kids Arkansas History, so she chose our state’s rockabilly history. She and her students would later find out about Sonny Deckelman, a Harrisburg native, second cousin to Bud Deckelman (who gained minor success after recording a single Daydreamin’ at Memphis’ Meteor Records), a minor rockabilly musician who founded Van-Deck Records in Harrisburg in 1959. Her students made a card for the man thanking him for his music.
Sonny Burgess had a big help in the making of this book. Victoria and Sonny would become good friends through the making of it. Pasmore had told me she had asked him who he thought she should include and noted “He was very helpful, I became good friends with him, I just loved him.” She continues, “He was such a cool guy. I’ve got so many autographs from him... I had a book signing in Newport, and he came up for it.” Victoria and I talked for over an hour about the musicians and stories from the 1950s. Her favorite story is of Elvis Presley being an honorable member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity of Arkansas State University (then Arkansas State College). Famously, he and the group would pose in front of Graceland with pledge in hand. That same sorority was infamous for getting Ronald Reagan to visit the sorority house. I had told her one of my favorite stories I know, passed down to me from Barth Grayson, that Elvis would dance on the bar at the Wagon Wheel Saloon in Bald Knob, while country star Buck Owens would peel oranges because he was underage.
Victoria has plans for another title she is working on, The Writing On The Wall, which will dive further into a specific part of the rockabilly story. There are many that could write about this history, but Victoria is more than qualified due to her ties to Jerry Lee Lewis, meeting his sister (who had smaller fame), meeting Roseanne, and John R. Cash, Sonny Burgess and The Pacers, Carl Perkins, Sonny Deckelman,
For a brief look into the music that made Arkansas and Memphis notorious, Stars of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Highway is a great start. Those that read it will definitely discover artists they didn't know were from Arkansas, such as Billy Lee Riley from Pocahontas, known for his wild depictions and crazy alien-like sounds on his 1957 breakout song, Flyin’ Saucers Rock & Roll. Riley was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame posthumously in 2022. I asked Victoria what three artists she recommends that give a genuine feel of modern rockabilly, she replied with Memphis’ Brandon Cunning, and Jason D. Williams, who is known for claiming to be Lewis’ illegitimate son. I highly recommend Stars of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Highway for those who want to get into 20th Century Arkansas history, rock and roll history, or may even want to discover old artists.