Ducktails, Drive-ins, and Broken Hearts by Hank Davis

Author:Hank Davis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2023-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

An Unexpected Reunion

Figure 17.2. Johnny Prye at home in Memphis, 1983.

Thirty years after their recording session in 1953, five members of the group were still living in Memphis. When Colin Escott and I visited Johnny Prye in 1983, he asked if he could invite some surviving members of the quartet to join us. Along with Prye, we met James Taylor, James Rayford, and Walter Oliver. Oliver had not sung in a while, and during this impromptu reunion, he commented, “The pipes are a bit rusty.” He could have been speaking for everyone.

Prye was still living at the same address and held the same day job with McLean Trucking as he had when Sam Phillips first summoned the group to record in 1954. Born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1924, Prye had remained active in the local gospel scene, singing with several groups and training still others.

During our interview/Jones Brothers reunion, Johnny Prye revealed that Elvis had visited the studio during one of the group’s sessions at Sun. According to Prye, Elvis had wandered in and spontaneously begun to sing with the quartet, enjoying the excitement of the vocal interplay, just as he would two years later during the famous Million Dollar Quartet session. Prye reported that Sam Phillips had turned on the tape recorder and captured some of this impromptu singing. This would be six months before Elvis’s first “official” recording at Sun in July 1954 and considerably before his musical style or direction were clear to Phillips or, for that matter, to anyone.

Prye indicated that Sam Phillips gave him an acetate of one of those songs featuring Elvis with the quartet. Prye had dutifully stored it away in the attic of his modest Memphis home on Warren Avenue. The acetate was in good company with piles of old tapes and dubs that he kept safely in the attic above the living room. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the temperature on the streets of Memphis during the reunion that day was pushing 100 degrees. Thirty years of Memphis summers rendered Prye’s attic a less than optimal storage facility for an acetate of historical value. We gently suggested that Prye have a look around for the disc as well as anything else from the era that might have collector or historical interest, not to mention financial value. He promised to do so.

On our next visit several days later, Johnny presented me with a shoebox of old tapes that contained quartet rehearsals. Sadly, there was no acetate and no Elvis. We reluctantly departed, leaving our address and strong encouragement that Prye continue to search the attic. Not surprisingly, word never came from Memphis.

Johnny Prye died on March 10, 1987. James Taylor sang at his funeral. Several months after Prye’s death, there was considerable damage to his house, causing the roof to collapse and showering the contents of the attic into the living room and a downstairs bedroom occupied by Prye’s disabled son, John Jr. Fortunately, no one was hurt,

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