Greg Tucker, The Murfreesboro Post, October 25, 2016
Musicians Larry & Gay Pinkerton
Country music was never favored by this Rutherford County native, but it provided some rare opportunities for a virtuoso guitarist.
“Guitarist Larry Pinkerton plays at a level way above everybody else,” says bassist Avent Lane. “I’ve worked with guitarists locally, in Nashville and on the road. On any style — country, jazz, pop, even latin — Pinkerton is among the nation’s very best, and also one of the best-kept secrets.”
Pinkerton’s music began with his father, George Pinkerton, who learned to play the guitar while serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II. “He learned what he called ‘poor man’s tuning’ with which he could play simple chords and melodies with one finger,” explains Larry Pinkerton. “Today it is called ‘open G tuning’ and is still widely used.”
George Pinkerton was also an improvisational dancer. “His style was ‘honky-tonk vaudeville,’ danced solo to a rug-cutting tune. It was athletic and comical and would usually earn him a complimentary drink or two,” recalls Pinkerton.
Performing at home as a child, the younger Pinkerton would dance like his father while his uncle and father enthusiastically played their rummage sale guitars and threw coins. “I quickly understood that the more I reeled and contorted, the more pennies and nickels they would toss my way.”
Influenced by his father’s playing, and impressed by the bluesy style of a blind street musician in Nashville, Pinkerton began dabbling at the age of 12 with the guitars of others. “I didn’t own a guitar, so I spent a lot of time with friends who did. For my 14th birthday my parents gave me a $16 no-name guitar. By 16 I had worked my way up to a cherry-red, Sears Silvertone with amp,” remembers Pinkerton.
People sometimes say that a skilled instrumentalist has a gift for music. “I don’t recall any ‘gift.’ I remember a lot of hard work, frustration, commitment and practice, practice, practice,” says Pinkerton. “Instrumental skill is earned and developed through study, practice and experience.”
His first band experience was in the mid-1960s with the Wren Street Byrdz. “Our band included Bobby Murchison on drums, David Jones on bass, Walter Lufkin on vocals and me playing lead guitar. Our debut gig was at Pope Taylor‘s barbecue shack on Woodbury Pike east of Murfreesboro. We mostly were out of tune, played wrong notes, and garbled the lyrics, but we made up for it by being loud on classics like ‘Louie, Louie’ and ‘I Feel Good.'”
The Wren Street Birdz evolved into the Walter Hill Band, and by 1972 the band was on the road, usually sleeping two to a bed and eating whatever and whenever food was available. “On these early trips, I was often homesick and saw how road work could stress a relationship — professional or domestic,” remembers Pinkerton. “My first marriage lasted about as long as a cell phone contract.”
It soon became apparent that the Walter Hill Band needed a “chick singer” and a manager. “We hired a manager and he hired Cassie Gaines, an attractive and very capable Memphis singer,” remembers Pinkerton. “Our first gig with Cassie was at The Aristocat in Charleston, South Carolina.”
The Aristocat was on a well-travelled route through Charleston with a gaudy sign that suited the name. The building had a small restaurant in front with a nightclub in the back. “The owners wanted us to play unusually late hours — 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. First night we started on time, playing to a near empty room. Then, as if on cue, folks suddenly piled in from another part of the building. They danced, drank and partied like they had been there all evening, then disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.
“After a few nights of this unusual crowd behavior, we noticed that the appearance of the crowd coincided with the arrival of uniformed police officers. The police would look the joint over, then leave. Soon after their departure, our audience would head back to the hidden and illegal gambling area. Someone apparently tipped the operators when an official visit was imminent.”
While on the road, Gaines told Pinkerton about her brother, Steve, who was also a talented guitarist. She hoped the two could someday meet and play together. Unfortunately, the meeting never occurred. In 1977 Cassie and Steve Gaines, members of the Lynyrd Skynyrd band, died in a plane crash.
In the spring of 1976 Larry Pinkerton was playing among professional musicians in the Georgia Brown Band. A Nashville gig ended abruptly with the closing of what started as a hip, two-band, dance club, and quickly evolved into a wet-T-shirt bar. Looking for paying work, the band connected with Canadian Rusty Elwood, a good singer and bass player who had worked with Ferlin Husky (“On the Wings of a Dove”) and had contacts in Canada.
“Rusty booked us a road tour across western Canada with a warm-up gig in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. This was the first gig I played not wearing blue jeans. We actually had rather loud, matching outfits. Two of our most requested songs were ‘Alley Cat’ and ‘Wipe Out.’ After a few nights of repetitive requests, we arranged the two songs into one seamless piece where one song weaved in and out of the other. We were making fun of the over-requested, cliché tunes and the audience loved it.”
In Canada as Rusty Elwood and the White Crackers, the show included comical parodies of country and pop stars such as Johnny Cash, Bill Anderson, Hank Snow and Elvis. Heavy on country music and humor, including quality impersonations, the performances were well-received. “The show was quirky enough that local media — newspaper and television — ran stories on us,” recalls Pinkerton. “It was fun, profitable and my baptism into country music and the international marketability of that musical genre. I had heard country music all my life, but preferred the music of my generation, not that of my parents… but money talks.”
In December 1976 Larry Pinkerton was introduced on stage at the iconic Grand Ole Opry, and despite the first-night shakes he kicked off a performance of the big country and pop music hit, “The End of the World.”
NEXT WEEK: Skeeter, the Opry and around the world.
Historian Greg Tucker may be reached at [email protected].