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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Music roots run deep
Mark Wallace has memorabilia from the old Fernwood Records studio in Memphis. His grandfather, Ronald 'Slim' Wallace, was a founder and partner in the studio.
Descendant of recording pioneer seeks recognition for grandfather
By Jimmie Covington
May 14, 2006
commercialappeal.com
It's down there in the small type in the list of credits that scroll up the screen at the end of the hit movie "Walk the Line," the story of Johnny and June Carter Cash.
Few people ever look at the lengthy credits at the end of movies. Mark Wallace didn't even know his grandfather's name was there until someone told him.
Among the song credits is "'Rock With Me Baby' -- Written by B Riley, JClement and R Wallace."
Mark Wallace, 25, of Lake Cormorant sees the listing as part of the continuing legacy of his late grandfather, Ronald 'Slim' Wallace, co-founder of Fernwood Records with Jack Clement in Memphis in 1956.
Hi Records and Stax were among the well-known independent record labels that formed in Memphis in the late 1950s and early 1960s in the wake of Sun Records.
"But Memphis had a lot more indie labels than just those three," said The Commercial Appeal's former music critic Bill Ellis, who is pursuing a PhD in music. Fernwood was one of the minor labels but was one of the best, he said.
"Slim put out a lot of great music," Ellis said. "It (Fernwood) is definitely worth more than a footnote in local rock and roll history."
Slim Wallace, a former truck driver and club owner as well as musician and record company owner, died at 79 of heart disease in 2001. He was living in Walls. He had come to Memphis from Paragould, Ark., in the 1950s.
After his grandfather's death, Mark Wallace found canceled checks, payroll records and other memorabilia from Fernwood in the garage of his grandfather's home.
He believes his grandfather should be receiving more attention than he has in the history of rock and roll.
"My goal pretty much is to tell his story and leave his mark in a museum or probably at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame," said Mark Wallace, who has worked in the past as a bail bondsman. He is now working primarily to gain more recognition for his grandfather.
"I would like to tell the story of his life," he said. "I would like to write a book and even go so far as a film. It would make a great story. This is the record company that Memphis kind of put in the closet and forgot about."
Scotty Moore and Bill Black of Elvis fame left Sun Records and went to Fernwood in the late 1950s. The Scotty Moore Trio's "Have Guitar, Will Travel"/"Rest" was a Fernwood release.
Moore became vice president of Fernwood and produced records there, including Fernwood's top hit, Thomas Wayne's "Tragedy," which climbed into the nation's top 10 after its release in 1958.
Many of the canceled checks, payments of royalties to singers and others, as well as other expenses of producing records were signed Scott Moore (Scotty Moore).
The labels on Fernwood records carried the words "Sandra Music."
Mark Wallace said, "She was my grandfather's first daughter. She was 21 years old at the time and they found her body in her car with the garage door shut and the car running."
She was living in Tulsa, Okla. According to a Tulsa newspaper clipping, Sandra Jean Greer, a secretary, was found in her car in the garage beneath her apartment on Feb. 22, 1966. Tulsa police attributed the death to carbon monoxide poisoning.
She and her husband were estranged. Police closed the case without ruling whether it was a suicide or an accident.
Mark Wallace said his grandfather believed she had been murdered. The newspaper clipping, from Jan. 27, 1967, says that Slim Wallace, identified as a "truck driver from Memphis, Tenn.," had spent a year and almost $4,000 in an effort to prove the death was a murder.
Sandra Greer was buried in Paragould, Wallace's hometown. Slim Wallace won a court order to have her body exhumed and returned to Tulsa for further testing.
The testing did not result in a murder charge.
Mark Wallace said his grandfather lost interest in the music business after his daughter died. He sold Fernwood Records in 1969.
[Edited by Ten Thousand Motels] |
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