The Grand Tour by Rich Kienzle

later, George said, “That oughta show you how bad I hated doin’ it because I didn’t want anyone to know it was me. I’d have done anything in those days to make a dollar, because I was hungry.” Billboard might have called “Rock It” “country blues withan engaging beat” when reviewing the single, but radio and the public disagreed. Few stations played it, and sales were minimal. The passing of half a century didn’t temper George’s contempt for that bit of his history. In a 2006 interview, he called the record “a bunch of shit” and the “worst sounding crap that could ever be put on a record.” His aversion to singing rock himself didn’t preclude his admiration for the music of two black rock singers: Little Richard and Chuck Berry. Berry was especially admired by other rock-averse country singers because of his skill as a songwriter. Ernest Tubb had a hit 1955 adaptation of Berry’s “Thirty Days.”
    George didn’t have to worry about the “Heartbreak” cover, released by Pappy under the name “Hank Smith and his Nashville Playboys.” It was part of another Daily moneymaking idea. He’d produce cover versions of country hits, sung by George and unknown vocalists trying to impersonate the original singer, accompanied by a band roughly copying the original arrangement. He’d market them on radio as cut-rate singles and LPs. Finding hungry young singers willing to record these covers wasn’t hard. Among those who jumped on board for the money: Roger Miller and Donny Young, the future Johnny Paycheck.
    There was no small irony in Pappy, who’d pushed George to quit imitating other singers, paying him to mimic (with varying degrees of success) Johnny Horton on Horton’s hit “One Woman Man,” Ray Price on “Run Boy,” Carl Smith on “Before I Met You,” Marty Robbins on “Singing the Blues,” and Faron Young on “I Got Five Dollars and It’s Saturday Night.” Pappy marketed the discs via two popular late-night country disc jockeys with a national reach. One was Chicago’s Randy Blake, the other Paul Kallinger, who worked at Del Rio, Texas, station XERF, his program broadcast over megawatt transmitters across the border in Mexico. The common thread with these and the Thumper singlewas predictable. George declared that Starday “would pay me two hundred or three hundred dollars, which I needed real bad at the time, to go in there and do those type of things.”
    Beaumont acknowledged George’s growing fame when the Beaumont Enterprise ran a July 6, 1956, profile of him. Reporter Milton Turner declared, “He plays the guitar like he sings—enthusiastically. The result is he breaks about three or four guitar strings at each performance. This native Beaumonter is breaking other things too!” The story went on to claim “Why Baby Why” had sold half a million copies, a likely exaggeration. Turner also noted George’s recent awards, such as his Best New Artist of 1956 Award by Country and Western Jamboree magazine. Turner’s propensity for exaggeration peaked when he claimed the Thumper “Rock and Roll” singles were “rolling to the top—fast.”
    Pappy and former Starday employee Gabe Tucker, now in Nashville managing Ernest Tubb, focused on moving George to the next level: Opry membership, or a permanent place in the show’s cast of performers. Tucker, who’d worked for Colonel Tom Parker when the Colonel managed Eddy Arnold, was familiar with the highly political Opry environment. He secured George a guest spot for August 4. The 780-mile drive from Beaumont to Nashville was clear sailing compared to the bullshit he faced before he could set foot in front of a WSM microphone.
    Opry guest spots did not always end well. Elvis’s sole appearance in 1954 ended on a sour note when arrogant, conniving