In the mid 1950’s Gene Harrell would find his way to Texarkana where he would meet two young country musicians, Bette and Mary Kirby. Harrell would join future jazz artist of note, Clarence “Tonk” Edwards, sax player Del Puschert, steel player Ivan Greathouse and drummer Bill Fairbanks. Clarence was nicknamed “Tonk” by Bette Kirby after hearing play Bill Doggett’s “Honky Tonk”. He would later be inducted into the Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame. During his career he worked with Gerry Mulligan, Billy Butterfield, Dizzy Gillespie and Sarah Vaughan just to name a few.
The Kirbys and band were working at a night club called “Chaylor’s Starlight Club”. The band cut a few demonstration tracks while performing live at the club. Gene recalls, “The tracks were a little rough but we sent them up to Memphis to Sam Phillips.” Phillips headed up the legendary Sun Records label and studio that spawned so many historic musicians. Sam like what he heard and he soon came to Texarkana to check out the Kirbys.
This resulted in an invitation to come to Memphis and take a shot at Sun. Gene remembers Phillips as being “a very nice gentleman”. He relates, “Sam took us all out to lunch and then it was into the famous studio!”
Things started off well with the Kirbys and company cutting the first of five tracks on the session schedule. These included “The Blond in Red Velvet” a song penned by the Starlight Club owner’s daughter, Johnnie Chaylor. The other tracks were “I Got the Craziest Feeling” and a Gene Harrell composition “You’ll Always Belong To Me”, “So Tired” and finally “Hello Stranger”.
The first four of these are listed today in the Sun catalog. The fifth, “Hello Stranger” did not make it to tape. The session wa
s well under way when it was interrupted by a phone call from Johnnie Chaylor. She did not care for the two Kirby sisters and so – according to accounts in the book “Memphis Belles – The Women of Sun Records” by Hank Davis, threatened Phillips
with every verbal means to stop the sessions. Both “Tonk” Edwards and Gene recall the phone call and they knew something was amiss.
Phillips, apparently wishing to avoid problems, pulled the plug on the session. The Kirbys and company went back home. The tracks remained dormant in the Sun Vault until more recently when “Red Velvet” began to emerge as a rock-a-billy favorite appearing on global CD releases.