Had a great night in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, hanging with two legends: Bill Harlan and Royce Morgan! Of course, everybody knows Bill’s 1950s rockabilly classic “I Wanna Bop” (with Royce on guitar). These guys have so many stories about all the other things they did in the music business!
They started out together playing in the mid-1950s with Dave Rich, one of my favorite country singers. Dave Rich had an RCA record contract and was Chet Atkins’s favorite singer! Bill and Royce also worked with Jim Reeves as members of his band. Royce played with Red Sovine and a slew of other country legends over the years, and if that weren’t enough, Royce also played guitar and produced a batch of hot rockabilly singles in the 1950s on the Summit and Royce labels—really amazing records.
When Bill and Royce get together, they have seventy years of playing together between them, 1953 to 2023! Both of these guys helped me out a lot with interviews and research when I was here in Kentucky back in 2018 for the Merle Travis book.
On the way home, it started raining and quickly became a tornado-like scenario. We drove past Merle Travis’s monument at the Ebeneezer Baptist Church, where his ashes are buried. We made it home safe, but that weather was crazy!!
See all the photos and videos at the original FB post!
