Lions hear pitch for Rockabilly museum

Mark Randall, who has been writing news stories about the club as a guest member for the last year, spoke to the Lions about the possibility of starting a rockabilly museum to promote a unique chapter in the city's history.

"If I were to tell you people that Trumann was once at the center of the rock and roll revolution, how many of you would know that?" Randall asked. "Believe it or not, we were--little Trumann, Arkansas."

Randall said around 1959 Trumann resident Arlen Vaden started his own record label, Vaden Records in his hometown.

Vaden was a well-known DJ at the time whose Gospel program could be heard on radio stations across the county. He and his wife Jackie sang on the program and were one of the foremost gospel singing duos of their day.

Vaden recorded local artists like Larry Donn, Bobby Brown & the Curios, Newport DJ Chuck Comer , Joyce Brown, Bill Duniven and Teddy Redell, a Jerry Lee Lewis knock-off.

Although most of Vaden's recording artists never reached the degree of fame like Elvis or his other Memphis Sun Records label mates, their songs did became regional hits and could be found on jukeboxes and radio stations all across northeast Arkansas, southeast Missouri, western Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana.

Randall said Vaden would hit the local night club scene in Trumann as well as clubs in Newport looking for talent to record.

"Arlen had an ear for music and he was a bit of a night owl," Randall said. "He would prowl the clubs looking for talent and, believe it or not, Trumann had two of the most hoppin' clubs in Northeast Arkansas."

Northeast Arkansas back in the 1950s was home to a number of roadside night clubs and honky tonks with names like The Cotton Club and The C&R Club in Trumann, The Silver Moon Porky's Rooftop Club and in Newport, and Bob King's in Swifton. "This area, along with U.S. 67 in Newport, probably had as many as a dozen of these little night clubs on it. The Sun recording artists would get their records and hit the road and come to all of these roadhouses, honkytonks, whatever you want to call them," Randall said.

Randall said Trumann and Newport were both in counties that allowed which made the clubs were very popular places on the weekend.

"There wasn't a lot to do back then," Randall said. "Most people were poor farmers. They'd put in a long day's work out in the broiling sun, and come Friday or Saturday all the men would get off their tractors, they'd go to town to chase women, drink beer excessively, and listen to rock and roll music."

The clubs could get pretty rough with an occasional fist fight, but mostly people came to listen to early rock and roll music.

Big names like Sonny Burgess and the Pacers, who recorded for Sun Records and had hits such as "Redheaded Woman" and "We Wanna Boogie"; Billy Lee Riley, another Sun recording star whose hits included "Red Hot" and "Flying Saucer Rock & Roll"; Bobby Lee Trammell, who later went on to serve in the Arkansas legislature ;Conway Twitty; Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins all made stops at the clubs, Randall said.

Although the King of Rock himself, Elvis Presley, never did play at a club in Trumann, Randall said Elvis did stop off one day at Cotton Club and joined in a roadside jam session.

"Elvis was driving along the highway one day. There was a flatbed trailer outside The Cotton Club and a couple of musicians were sitting outside there, jamming on their guitars. He pulled off the side of the road, got out, grabbed his guitar, and started jamming with these guys," said Randall.

Randall said Northeast Arkansas was the center of the musical world back then.

"These clubs were pretty interesting places and it's just amazing that we have this kind of history," Randall said.

Plans to capitalize on this unique musical legacy are already underway.

Governor Beebe signed a bill earlier this year naming a stretch of U.S. Highway 67 that runs through Newport where most of the clubs were located the "Rock & Roll Highway.

"They're hoping to bring some spark and life back to these small towns, get a little bit of tourism going, and get people to come off the highway and see this unique history," Randall said

Randall said a rockabilly museum in Trumann could tie in nicely with other museums in the "Sunken Lands" area like the Southern Tenant Farmers Museum in Tyronza, John Grisham's 'A Painted House' in Lepanto, the Marked Tree Museum and efforts to build a Johnny Cash museum in Dyess.

"I've talked to the mayor in Dyess and he says they'll get tour buses that will pull off I-55," Randall. "There's nothing to see, but they still come because it's Johnny Cash."

"You've got Newport and the "Rock and Roll Highway" and "The Sunken Lands." And what is in the middle with nothing? Trumann," Randall said. "How cool would it be for us to form a Rock-A-Billy Museum to capture the history of all these local folks? We've got a lot of musical history here and it would be a shame to lose these Vaden guys. Bobby Brown, Joyce Green, Larry Donn, Teddy Redell -- they are all still around. We can sit them down and ask them about their early rock and roll days and record their memories. Larry Donn said to me 'You know, I was starting to get worried. I've got 50 years worth of memorabilia and I didn't know what I was going to do with it.' Well, here it is, folks. A Rock-A-Billy Museum in Trumann."

The idea then began to unfold. "Next time you're eating at the Main Street Café, look at the block right next to it. It recently got a facelift, but it's still a pretty raw space. There's three units. Think how cool it could be to have a recording studio on the end of that block. You could come in, sing karaoke, leave with a CD that says the name of the track, who you are, the date and Trumann Rock-A-Billy Museum. Then next door, you've got two old spaces with beautiful exposed brick and tin ceilings. You could walk in, pay your admission fee, start off with maybe a little 10 minute documentary that explains who these people are, hear some of the music and walk through galleries of displays of these Vaden artists. Think about what an interesting draw it could be."

"It's not going to be the economic development savior of Trumann. It's just not. But it gives you something. It gives you an attraction. It gives you some reason to get people off the highway and to Trumann, and it gives you some local pride.

"We have the resources to do this. Not only do we have the people who made this music who are still alive and who are very much interested, by the way, and enthusiastic about it, but we also have ASU just up the road to help."

Randall said ASU helped put together the Southern Tenant Farmers Museum and the Hemingway-Pfeiffer House in Piggott.

"They have a Bachelor's Degree Program in Museum Science or something like that and they need projects to work on," Randall said.

"We can do this, folks. It doesn't have to be big. You start off small, you let it grow, but you've got something. I think it would be a great idea if we could get Trumann on this rock and roll highway."