In My Wildest Dreams - Take 2

London Calling

"HAVE YOU GOT A DEATH WISH?!" Howard yelled as he grabbed the control column and yanked it back against the seat cushion, which in turn yanked mine back.

He did this as we neared the top of the loop I had started at thirty-five hundred feet above ground. I had let the elevator control go forward a couple of inches and start to flatten out the top side of our loop, making us vulnerable to a loss of airspeed and an inverted stall and spin. NOT good, and he corrected the sad situation just in time, adding the wry comment.

I craned my neck backwards to see if I could make the nose drop right on the water tower I had chosen for that purpose. Hell, no, I shouted, grinning over my shoulder at the black man in the backseat, this is too much fun!

Well, pay attention then! he said and laughed.

Strange, the two most important men in my life at the moment were black, and this one had my life in his hands.

Howard wiggled the stick to let me know I had control of the plane once again. At the bottom of the loop, I regained a five hundred feet per minute climb and headed back up to four thousand feet.

The little Citabria had only one hundred fifteen horsepower and required diving at the ground to get the one hundred forty knots of energy (speed) required to start a maneuver. This only took seconds. But the engine screamed, and the wind howled. And in those few seconds, my love of living was underlined in red! Doing aerobatics, you can easily get a shot of living that will keep you up all night.

We did another loop, and it was satisfactory. So Howard decided to turn me on to another trick, the snap roll. In this maneuver, you aim the nose UP until you run out of energy. Then, as the plane stalls, and the nose drops towards earth like a rock, you slam the stick hard left and kick the rudder pedal hard left, and the plane does a left-hand summersault. Your stomach comes up in your throat as the world changes and tumbles in the windshield!

The first one with Howard demonstrating was not as scary as the one I tried! The second one I did was much better, though, and I decided not to grunt and cry out anymore.

Wayne and his Citabria 115, West Memphis Aviation

When we finished the hour, I was sweating and happy to head back to the airfield. What I really liked was the way I felt after we landed.

I walked back into the little office on the side of the hanger, and instead of five-foot six, I felt six-feet-five! What a feeling of accomplishment as Howard Payne signed my logbook…

Aerobatics instruction/1 hour in 5258 X-RAY

One thing I loved about aviation was the lingo!

I climbed in the red Riviera and with great satisfaction drove east on Broadway to my home on McAuley Street where the grass was high from yesterday's rain.

As I was pushing the small red power mower back and forth across the front yard, my pre-teen daughter, Carla, stuck her head out the screen door and hollered, Hey Daddy, the phone is for you! It's Jerry Wexler.

I hit the kill button and ran inside, letting the screen door go BAMBAM behind me. Jerry always meant work. He was a little miffed at Memphis right now because of what he called, Memphis Intrigue, and was cutting tracks in New York, Muscle Shoals and Miami. I liked Miami best, and Love did, too. We always stayed at the the Thunderbird Motel on Miami Beach and had a ball there, plus we always got in at least one deep-sea fishing trip on Atlantic Records' boat, the Flying A.

He kept us very busy going to all those places on a regular basis. He preferred our sound to any other horn section at that time, and that was that.

I was a bit breathless when I picked up the phone.

Hey, Wayne BABY, you wanna go to London and make a record with Stephen Stills?

LONDON. Never thought I'd have the chance to return to London. I was instantly excited. Hell yeah! I replied. What's happening?

Stephen wants to go to London to make his next record and wanted to know if you guys would come over and make it with him. You'd be gone about two weeks, I think. And you know me, the pays gonna be good.

But I knew that already. Jerry's policy about pay was usually at least two and a half union scale sessions for each day out of town and double that for Andrew and me. Like a leader and contractor on each session date. So two weeks out of town for Jerry added up awfully good! Maybe eight hundred or a thousand bucks a day. And Andrew and I charged an additional three hundred bucks a song for arranging fees, which we split after our tiny office expenses. That total just depended on how many songs we did, but the session fees went on regardless. We were in heaven.

Jerry, Andrew and I for sure. Can I bring Jack Hale and Floyd Newman, too? And Ed Logan?

I'll leave that up to you, Wayne. This is a big project, and I want you to have what you need.

Up until now, at least when the technology had become available, Andrew and I had been playing all the instruments ourselves in our own overdub fashion. We really didn't need anybody else, but lately, working with Chips Moman over at American Studio, we'd gotten used to having all our bases covered at one time. It was nice.

Okay, Jerry. Let me check it out and get back to you.

Okay, man, I'll speak to you in the next few days, right?

Right, man. Well, so long for now.

So long, said Jerry.

The line went dead as I laid the receiver back in its cradle, but my heart was racing. Hey Carla, I hollered, who the heck is Stephen Stills?

I was doing R&B, always had, and didn't keep up with the other music that much, although I guess I should have. But not to worry, I had my own personal informant on the rock and roll scene.

Carla, like most teens or pre-teens, was glued to the radio and had all the information I did not.

She balled her fists up and planted them on her hips. Daddy! she scolded and glared at me, but with a small smile. Don't you listen to the radio? He was part of the band, Buffalo Springfield, and then Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. He's BIG TIME!

Well, Jerry just asked if I wanted to make a record with him!

She laughed a high-pitched, twelve-year-old laugh as she danced around in a circle. Yes, yes, she cried, when ya goin'?

I laughed, too, and leaned back against the kitchen counter. I don't know yet, but soon. And we're doing it in London, England!

I wanna go, I wanna go, she sang, but my mind wasn't with her.

I was already rehearsing exactly how I'd ask the guys to go so it would be to mine and Love's best advantage. This was making a definite statement, the two of us carrying a group of players to do a big project overseas, and I wanted it to say the right thing. Andrew and I were the Memphis Horns, and these guys would be going to England to either work WITH us or FOR us. But in the end, WE had to remain the Memphis Horns. The two of us had just incorporated as the Memphis Horns about a month after leaving the Stax payroll. It was not a part of our business plan to take anyone else in. This was an important turn in the road, and the next dialogue I had with anybody would have to be right.

First, I'd get with Andrew and plan it out.

Our finances were going really well at the time. Especially when our house notes were like eighty-two dollars a month, car notes about seventy-five dollars and utilities fourteen to eighteen dollars. Basic phone bills were almost nothing unless, like me, you stayed on long distance a lot. Insurance was low too, even hospitalization. Plus, we were young.

We drove new cars, and the kids were in good schools. We lived in nice houses in nice neighborhoods. We worked for the biggest and best record companies in enviable places. The time was right for a move, and here was the opportunity.

We were hot.

I called Andrew, and when he answered, I jumped on him.

Love, I said, listen to me, we're in the best position we've ever been in. Wexler wants us to go to London to play on Stephen Stills' record. Says we'll be there two weeks or so at good money! And we get to bring whoever we want to play with us. What do you think?

Who we gonna take, and why we gonna take um?

Prestige, I answered. Now we got us a BIG horn section. We just gotta be sure it gets billed right, that's all. Our names have to be stuck out front. This is our chance to get known in a big way.

Yeah, said Love.

I couldn't have imagined, but this time the huge engine of change I could have heard coming to life, had I been listening, was a jet. The white stampede was thundering toward Memphis, ready to suck up the Memphis Horns for a wild seven year ride across the American landscape of Rock & Roll!!

The High Life

The Seventies began in Memphis with an explosion from Hi Studio that would send shock waves of Al Green around the world time after time. Papa Willie Mitchell produced, and the Hi Rhythm Section poured out the funk and soul that only they could deliver.

Over at American Studio, producer, Chips Moman, had sent out his own tsunamis with Elvis Presley (Suspicious Minds and In The Ghetto), BJ Thomas (I Just Can't Help Believing), Neil Diamond (Cracklin' Rosie and Sweet Caroline). On and on it went.

Love and I were on all of it! Memphis was rocking, and Andrew and I were rocking, too. Smack dab in the middle!

Isaac was getting ready to put out Shaft, which would garner him an Academy Award. However, as you will remember, things had changed over at our old launching pad, Stax. A big time corporation bought it, suits arrived with time cards, New York City gangsters descended with guns, and the thrill was gone.

We had learned so much there, and I learned from Andrew that when the party was over, it was time to split.

Within a month of leaving the Stax payroll, Andrew and I incorporated as the Memphis Horns and doubled our prices to cut out some of the business, which we were beginning not to need anymore. We had come into our own. And strangely enough, our workload increased!

We were still in and out of all the Memphis studios, which now had grown to include Sounds of Memphis, Transmaximus Recording Studios (Jerry Williams, Ronnie Stoots and Steve Cropper's new place), John Fry's Ardent Studio and Pepper Tanner's jingle factory. AND we were still driving back and forth to Muscle Shoals, Nashville and Jackson, Mississippi, and flying back and forth to New York and Miami for Atlantic Records. We'd been working like crazy with Jerry Wexler all through the Sixties, and the Seventies showed no sign of letting up.

I was especially tight with Jerry since he'd picked up Last Night back in 1961 for Atlantic from the fledgling Satellite Records and had given it a chance to hit. I'd known him then, and as he became addicted to Southern roots musicians and producers and Southern style songs, I got to know him better. He began to depend on us more and more. Andrew and I were the backbone of his horn sound.

Andrew and Wayne in the studio - 1970

Going out of town to record seemed like a vacation. Being at home was exciting, but also filled with opportunities to party after work. We were young and took full advantage. And we were local heroes, too. We'd go by and sit in at the clubs, but it was well known we didn't have to, if for no other reason than by the cars we were driving. Andrew had a new yellow Buick Wildcat, and I had the red Riviera with white leather interior.

The first building in Memphis constructed exclusively as a studio was Onyx Studios in 1967. It was designed and owned by Ronnie Stoots. The second one was Sounds of Memphis studio owned by Gene Lucchesi and Paul Bommarito and operated by engineer, Stan Kessler. It was a beautiful, brown brick building, and that's where we got our first office.

We bought a couch, two metal desks, lamps and even a stainless steel sign for the door that said in raised letters, Memphis Horns. We were in business. We had a logo designed, and stationary and cards made up. We got a bank account named Memphis Horns, and Pat Adams, our secretary from Ray Brown's office, came over there with us and made us feel important. She kept the checkbook for us and called us boss. It was a ball!

My sister-in-law, Frances, came over and decoupaged an upright piano I had purchased for the office. She antiqued it yellow with gray splotches. Groovy.

Andrew at work in the new office

The year before the new place was finished, Stan had produced the first Memphis Horns album for Atlantic Records. It was a good instrumental record, fully representative of the times. We used the new rhythm section in town, the Dixie Flyers, consisting of Charlie Freeman on guitar, Sammy Creason on drums, Tommy McClure on bass and Mike Utley on piano. So we had a different sound from Stax, Hi or American. Wexler loved it. He was like a giant predator sitting up on an overhang, looking down on Memphis, ready to snatch up whatever wasn't tied down. He grabbed Andrew and I as soon as we departed Stax, and after this album with us, he offered the Dixie Flyers a deal they couldn't refuse. They all moved to Miami to work full-time for Atlantic at Criteria Studio. We were there a lot, too, so it was like Memphis south was born.

So here we were, newly incorporated a short time and very excited. We began using the office often, sometimes even to work. We were serious about writing and getting in on that publishing money. We had been building a nice catalog of songs cut at Stax and Hi on the Mar-Keys, Booker T. & the MGs and Willie Mitchell. New Orleans legend Al Hirt even covered one of our tunes called Honey Pot. Indescribably delicious! Betty Lavette cut one of our songs right there at Sounds of Memphis called At The Mercy Of A Man.

We were so hot we sizzled. And I am certain of one thing, we were addicted to the excitement and never wanted it to end.

And as you know, when I wasn't making music, I was flying. This was a true escape for me. Of course, there was a new twist these days. I wasn't just flying my own plane. I was also getting to fly a LearJet with my friend and mentor, Milo High.

Wayne in the pilot seat of a Lear Jet with long time friend and mentor Milo High

Milo was a twenty-thousand-hour pilot, and currently chief pilot for a man named Ed Wren who owned American Realty Services. This was a booming company that purchased tracks of land, built dams that made lakes, put in road and sewer systems, and then sold lots in the development. A very big deal. And Ed was making worlds of money.

On many trips, Milo would let me be his co-pilot. If I couldn't go, he'd get Roland Erby, the full-time co-pilot to go. I was logging hours in the finest airplane in the world at that time. Milo was the greatest guy. He would even come over to West Memphis sometimes and fly the little Citabria with me. It was aerobatic, and boy, he let me have it! That's the kind of teacher he was naturally. He had another airplane, a twin-engine Piper Navajo, and sometimes we'd fly that, too.

So I was just playing and flying my ass off and loving it! How good could life BE?

I thought everything at home was groovy, too, since Linda and Ed Wren's wife, Bobby, were tight. Bobby was Elvis' first cousin from Tupelo, Mississippi. She'd been hanging in the clubs in Memphis for some time, so I knew her.

When she married Ed, they purchased one of the biggest mansions in Midtown and refurbished it. Elvis would go there to hang out away from Graceland and relax. They threw elaborate parties, and Love and I played several of them. For Ed's sixtieth birthday, Bobby bought him a Rolls Royce, and they asked me to drive us all out to dinner at Pappy and Jimmy's lobster house in it. I thought, this is the way you do it! We went to their house for cards once a week or so. Then they'd come to our humble abode. Ed didn't mind. He was a very affable person and generous as hell.

L-R; Roland Erby, Milo & Nancy High,Wayne & Linda, Bobby & Ed Wren in