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4 The Nashville Musician April-June 2007
Secretary-
Treasurer’s
Report
GREAT FINANCIAL NEWS
By Billy Linneman
Come to the meeting on May 30th at 6:30 p.m. to hear a
great report on our finances. Our overall business was up almost
10% in money paid to musicians in 2006 over 2005.
As you saw on the front page we will be voting on several
items. In addition, we will have a discussion on several items.
1. Credit card costs and a possible service fee to be charged.
2. Adding an interest charge for late work dues.
3. Talk about Leader/Contractor duties.
The Federations’ bi-annual convention is this year in June.
A portion of the membership meeting will be with the delegates
to discuss any matters that affect Local 257.
Make sure that you read Harold’s column about RFD-TV.
While you’re at it, go ahead and read all of our columns—
President’s—Secretary/Treasurer’s—Electronic Media’s—
Symphonic’s—RMA’s—Live’s—Office Manager’s!!
Signatory Signatory Signatory Signatory
No Signatory—No Pension—No Special Payments—No New Use
What part of NO do you not understand?
We are looking forward to having a great informative General
Membership Meeting, 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 30. See
you here!
Fraternally,
Billy Linneman
Secretary-Treasurer of the BEST MUSICIANS in the world!!!
Country Music Hall of Famer Harold Bradley shares his recording and behind the scenes music experiences
with students of SAE Institutes’ Recording Engineering in Nashville, March 8, as part of SAE’s series
of workshops and seminars given by leading industry pros. In addition to 60 years of session work, he and
brother Owen Bradley established Nashville’s first film and recording studio in Music City in the 1950s.
Tom Cherry hasn’t forgotten those good ol’ days
President Bradley presents 25-year Membership Pin to multi-instrumentalist-arranger
Tom Cherry, as wife Ann and daughhter Lisa share in the moment.
Tom Cherry came up from Mobile the
other day, and his buddy Harold Bradley presented
him with a 25-year Membership Pin,
congratulating him also on a quarter century
of hitting the highway with Homer (Boots)
Randolph III.
Accompanying Cherry was Ann, his wife
of nearly 47 years (in June), and their daughter
Lisa Frye, who lives here. They’re also parents
to John Cherry and Leigh Anne Cherry,
and boast eight grandchildren and a greatgrandchild.
Highly talented Tom plays just about any
instrument, notably jazz guitar, as well as bass,
clarinet, banjo, drums, clarinet and arranges,
as well.
He said, “I’m basically an uneducated musician,
but I studied and learned a lot about
music. I’d write the musical arrangement for
every instrument in a band or orchestra. I got
started doing this in Korea (serving in the Army
from 1955-1958, mainly in Special Services).
I also compose music.”
Of course, longtime boss Boots Randolph
is renowned for saxophone stylings and his
popular signature song “Yakety Sax,” which
cleverly blends jazz, blues, country and gospel.
That particular number, released in 1963,
produced such an ear-pleasing mix that it also
landed on pop and R&B charts.
No doubt Cherry knows that tune
frontwards and backwards. Tom recalled his
first meeting with Randolph: “He asked if I
could play the guitar as well as I played the
saxophone. Boots always comes right to the
Texas-based John William Greubel is making
a pilgrimage of sorts to Sharon, Pa., this
summer for the induction of the world-famous
Hilltoppers into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame.
Better known as Jack Greubel, the Local
257 musician spent several years as a
Hilltopper, performing a repertoire of songs
such as “Trying,” “I’d Rather Die Young,”
“P.S. I Love You,” “From the Vine Came the
Grape,” “Till Then,” “Only You” and
“Marianne.”
To be sure, there are many more Top 40
Hilltopper hits, all recorded on Randy Wood’s
Dot label.
The original contingent, conceived in college,
consisted of lead vocalist Jimmy Sacca,
Don McGuire, Seymour Spiegelman and Billy
Vaughn (who later broke away to start up his
own band).
Predictably, through the years there were
a number of changes in the group’s line-up,
prior to busting up for good in 1976. (Billy
Vaughn, in addition to his act, was also Dot’s
A&R pop director during the late 1950s.)
One of the more interesting aspects of The
Hilltoppers’ tune “From the Vine Came the
Grape” is that part of it is sung in Italian.
Incidentally, the campus where the whole
thing began back in 1952, was Western Kentucky
State College in Bowling Green.
point. By this time, I was not only playing the
sax and guitar, but also the flute . . . ”
Their meeting went so well that he was
asked to join in the band’s rehearsal the very
next day. Little did he dream how long-term
that association would be.
Cherry said he was initially inspired by
his parents’ interest in music: “My father
played the guitar and my mother played a banjo
and a harmonica at the same time; it always
made me cry. I’m very sentimental.”
In his teens,Tom played in regional groups
such as the Smith Combo, and one called the
Sentimental Three, remembering a special
event for the latter players: “We entered a contest,
sponsored by WABB - (and) we won!”
Following his discharge from the
military,Tom and brother Joe, a bass player,
joined a touring group, the Night Riders.
“Johnny Faircloth was the lead guitarist
and his father bought the band a big bus. We
looked good. We played at colleges and clubs.”
Tom and his family relocated to Nashville
in 1980, to accept the assignment with Boots
and company, but illness prompted his move
back to his native Alabama. He showed Harold
last year’s newspaper clipping from Mobile’s
daily Press Register, in which the veteran musician
was quoted as saying, “When I moved
back to Mobile in 2004, I became an adjunct
professor of jazz guitar studies at the University
of Mobile. I love it and plan to start back
soon . . . I’m recuperating from a year-long
illness, but am teaching private lessons through
the university.”
Local 257’s Jack Greubel was a member
The Hilltoppers named to Vocal Hall of Fame
Greubel attended Vandercook College of
Music in Chicago, where he majored in voice.
Although Jack plays drums and organ, he
enjoys singing, and even did that while serving
in the U.S. Army. But while the former
native of Evansville, Ill., was living in Nashville
in 1968, he got the enviable opportunity
of linking up with The Hilltoppers.
When Greubel joined with Sacca,
Nashville’s Karl Garvin (another Local 257
member) was there, along with Chuck Ayre.
According to Greubel, “There were a lot
of vocal groups back in the 1950s and ’60s
like The Four Lads and Four Freshmen . . .
Myself and two others came on board after the
original group broke up. There was a difference
in the first and second groups. In the first,
the four guys only sang. In the second, we sang
and played. I performed with them for four or
five years beginning in 1968. I sang the high
part.”
Jack Greubel, who now lives in Granbury,
Texas, plans to attend the induction ceremony,
along with Sacca and Ayre, as some of the others
are now deceased.
Congratulations to Sacca, Greubel and all
fellow ’toppers on their achievements, and
some might say induction into the Vocal Group
Hall of Fame is long overdue for the smooth
singing members of The Hilltoppers.