ROCK ON AND ON AND ON | DOUG KOEMPEL

Click above to listen to "Rock On And On And On," Doug's tribute to Elvis [This article is a reprint from the Thursday, May 3, 2018 Memory Brothers Newsletter] MY DEAR FRIEND BUDDY MICHAEL way out in North Carolina tunes in to Jeanne Grebin's live, Memory Brothers' webcast every Wednesday night. He posts Facebook comments in real-time and occasionally requests a song or two. Bud's latest request was "Rock On And On And On" - a song I hadn't performed in years . . . hmmmm, maybe decades! Nevertheless I do vividly remember the day that I wrote it. It was August 16, 1977. How do I remember that specific date? Well, it was the day that Elvis died. Kevin Conner and I were starting the second week of a two-week stint at the Black Steer in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. In the late afternoon, I was backing out of my parking spot at the Maple Manor Motel in my old, Chrysler station wagon. I had intended to get a quick bite at Chau Hong's restaurant before we had to head to the club when it came over the radio: "Here is a news bulletin. 42-year-old singer Elvis Presley has died at Baptist hospital in Memphis . . ." Stunned, I sat in my wagon and listened to the rest of the shocking news. I then slowly pulled back into my parking space, headed to my room and grabbed a pencil and a sheet of motel stationery. With my appetite suddenly extinguished, a pall suddenly descended on my otherwise cheery, summer day. The only thing I could think of doing was to start writing a tribute to my great musical hero, Elvis Presley.   * * * At the time, I had just been recruited as a new artist for an old country label, Chart Records out of Nashville. Chart Records had been floundering during the '70s as many of its major artists such as Roy Clark and Lynn Anderson had defected to larger labels. So the new owner of Chart, Big Jack Rodamaker, recruited a bunch of newcomers such as Billy Cole, Billy Brown, Yvonne DeVaney, Steve Bledsoe, Holly Holiday and myself as new artists in an attempt to resuscitate the label. Chart Records' producer, Arnold Rogers, had been looking for a song for me to record for my debut single with the label. So I called Big Jack and told him about my Elvis tribute. The week after our Eau Claire gig, he flew me to Nashville; and we recorded this song using an all-star lineup of musicians including D.J. Fontana, Elvis's original drummer! The single went out to 3,000 radio stations along with promotional inserts and comment cards (see below.) Most of the responses from the music directors were good, and we received considerable airplay. However, we soon found out that there were certain radio stations that didn't take kindly to Elvis tributes as they felt the tributes were trying to cash in on the King's death! When the dust settled and it all got sorted out, the tribute that became a million seller was Ronnie McDowell's "The King Is Gone" which was recorded in the same studio, Music City Recorders, using the same session players as I had. But their release beat me to the punch by one week! At that time Ronnie McDowell was an unknown singer who released "The King Is Gone" on Slim Williams' indie label, Scorpion Records - a one-room record label hardly bigger than a broom closet - right down the hall from Chart Records' office. "The King Is Gone" went on to sell over 5,000,000 copies and launched a 30-year recording career for Ronnie that included four #1 records, "Older Women," "In A New York Minute," "You're Gonna Ruin My Bad Reputation" and "All Tied Up." (For some fascinating background on Slim Williams, Ronnie McDowell and "The King Is Gone," click here.) In 1980 I was invited to one of Ronnie's recording sessions at Music City Recorders by studio owner Jack Logan. I found Ronnie to be a very humble and amiable fellow.   * * * Nonetheless, the whole Elvis tribute experience back in 1977, along with my first real record release, is still a very special chapter in my life with lots of fond (and some bittersweet) memories.

[below are additional notes from the Memory Bros' Song Vault on the writing and recording of "Rock On And On And On."]

"ROCK ON AND ON AND ON"
writer: Doug Koempel
song written: August 16, 1977

single release (1977)
label: Chart Action / CA-114-A
publishing: Jaroco Music, BMI / Blue Baker Music, BMI

album release (1980)
album title: SAYIN' GOOD-BYE
label: JAROCO Records
publishing: Jaroco Music, BMI / Blue Baker Music BMI

lead vocal, piano and clavinet: Doug Koempel
acoustic guitar: Steve Logan
electric guitar: Jimmy Bryant
steel guitar: Buddy Emmons
bass: Bud Logan (Jim Reeve's original bass player
          and John Conlee's producer)
drums: D.J. Fontana (Elvis's original drummer)
strings: The Wire Choir (arranged by Kris Wilkinson)
background vocals: Sound Seventy Singers (including Janie Fricke)
recorded at: Music City Recorders / Nashville, TN
engineered by: Jack Logan

NOTES: Kevin Conner and I were performing at the Black Steer in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. It was 4:30 PM on a Tuesday, and I was just pulling out of the motel parking lot on my way to the club when I heard it on the radio: "Police in Memphis, Tennessee say Elvis Presley, the Mississippi boy whose country rock guitar and gyrating hips launched a new style in popular music, died this afternoon at Methodist Hospital. Presley was 42 years old."

I was stunned as I had been an avid fan of Elvis's ever since I'd seen him on Ed Sullivan in the 1950s. I immediately headed back to my motel room and scribbled out the first draft of a tribute song. Within an hour or so, I was finished and had called the head of the record label I was recording for and convinced him to let me release this tribute as a single.

Within a month I was at Music City Recorders in Nashville surrounded by a superstar lineup of session players including, ironically, D.J. Fontana (Elvis's original drummer.) We recorded the single and sent out 3,000 copies to program directors throughout the U.S. including all the Billboard tracking stations.

We included a promotional insert (see below) with a picture of me on one side, the lyrics on the other and a detachable comment card.

On the comment card were two checkable options:

• I like your record and will play it!

• Nope, better go back to driving a truck!

And then there was a "Comments" section from which we learned something surprising. Read on . . .

Although we had jumped on this release and got the record out within a few weeks, we found out that we weren't the only ones doing tributes to Elvis. In fact we found through the comments section on the reply cards that some of the program directors didn't take kindly to these tribute records! Some of the stations felt that those doing tributes were trying to capitalize on Elvis's death! Although that may have been true in some cases, it certainly wasn't my intent.

Nevertheless we did garner a lot of airplay, and our record was considered one of the top tributes to Elvis. However, one tribute turned out to be an unprecedented hit - selling 5,000,000 copies to date and that was "The King Is Gone" by Ronnie McDowell.

That record had been recorded a week before ours in the very same studio with the same session players. The irony was that although "The King Is Gone" launched Ronnie McDowell's recording career, it also sunk his label, Scorpion, and caused the owner, Bradley Williamson to quit the music business. To read that fascinating story, click here (scroll to bottom of interview for details related to "The King Is Gone.")

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