Muscle Shoals Recordings

07/28/2022

TONIGHT, TONIGHT: Hope you'll come out and join Reverend Jerry Reeves and the Skyliters for this evening's taping of the Salt and Pepper Series at the Mane Room in Florence, AL. Tickets are still available at saltandpepperpresentsorearandreeves.eventbrite.com.

Hope you enjoyed this look at a little bit of the history of the Skyliters, these past couple weeks. Look forward to seeing everyone on down the road!

-Mike O'Rear

07/28/2022

THE SKYLITERS HISTORY:

Here's one of our last pictures before the pandemic that put everyone on the sidelines. We're so thankful to be back at it again. This will be heading into our 61st year together this-coming November. The Skyliters are more than friends, we're family. We were never a technically-great band, but we all played well together as a group.

I don't think you'll find another band anywhere that has more love and respect for each other than we do. We're looking forward to the taping of our Salt and Pepper show tomorrow night at the Mane Room in Florence, AL. The Reverend Jerry Reeves and his band is on the same ticket, and they are a great band, with all the gospel and soul you'd ever want to see.

Hope you can come out and join us! Tickets are available at saltandpepperpresentsorearandreeves.eventbrite.com.

-Mike O'Rear

07/27/2022

In addition to our Skyliters History posts leading up to our show at the Mane Room in Florence for the Salt and Pepper Music Series (tickets available at saltandpepperpresentsorearandreeves.eventbrite.com) we will also be sharing some pictures shared by other members of the band each day.

Pictured along with the group are: Foxy Griffin (our stage manager, bottom left,) and Jackie Cheatwood (radio station owner, bottom right.) (Photo credit: HoJo)

-Mike O'Rear

07/27/2022

In addition to our Skyliters History posts leading up to our show at the Mane Room in Florence for the Salt and Pepper Music Series (tickets available at saltandpepperpresentsorearandreeves.eventbrite.com) we will also be sharing some pictures shared by other members of the band each day.

Our reunion shows seem to somehow revolve around fellowship and food these days. (Photo credit: HoJo)

-Mike O'Rear

07/27/2022

THE SKYLITERS HISTORY:

Here are the Skyliters doing an outside show at one of the vineyards in Tennessee. We always enjoyed these shows. Usually they were for high school reunions, but I'm not sure exactly which one this was for. For years, we have done the festival on the Tennessee River in Clifton, TN for Coty Smith, and the Mule Day Festival in Columbia, TN for our dear friends Willard and Donna Murphy.

Many thanks to all the city governments who have had us play street parties to help support our scholarship fund. These days, we still enjoy the festivals and theatre shows, and are looking forward to doing more in the future. The Skyliters' motto is "play 'til you can't play no more."

-Mike O'Rear

07/26/2022

The picture below was from a show we did with George "Goober" Lindsay in the mid-2000s. What a character he was! Goober's friend Jimmy Moore, who had worked with George on Hee-Haw for several years, took this photo. They both have since passed away and are dearly missed by all their fans, including the Skyliters.

George absolutely mesmerized the audience with one of the best live performances I've ever seen anyone do. If you ever watched any of those clips from Hee-Haw of people jumping out of hay lofts, hopping on the back of hay wagons, throwing hay at each other, that was some of Jimmy Moore's high-speed footage. Great show, great people.

-Mike O'Rear

07/25/2022

In addition to our Skyliters History posts leading up to our show at the Mane Room in Florence for the Salt and Pepper Music Series (tickets available at saltandpepperpresentsorearandreeves.eventbrite.com) we will also be sharing some pictures shared by other members of the band each day.

Practicing at Dickey Mayberry's piano store in the 1980s. (Photo credit: HoJo)

-Mike O'Rear

07/25/2022

THE SKYLITERS HISTORY:

As the new millennium began, we continued to play many charity events. Here's another picture from HoJo at a charity event for the Loretto, TN High School Band in the mid-2000s. We did a once-a-month dance at the Loretto Civic Center to help the Loretto High School Band raise money. Their band director Darrell Boston was such a great inspiration to all those kids that came under his direction. Darrell is retiring this year, and will be dearly missed by all the folks in south-central Tennessee.

Many thanks go out to some of our past supporters in the radio business like Jackie Cheatwood (whose son, Taylor Cheatwood, a great musician, will be playing the upcoming show with us on the 28th,) Roger Wright (who has helped to promote us in south-central TN,) the Phillips family (who have helped to promote us in north AL,) and the Self family (who have helped to promote us in north AL, with a special remembrance of Mitch Self, who helped us get our start.)

-Mike O'Rear

07/24/2022

In addition to our Skyliters History posts leading up to our show at the Mane Room in Florence for the Salt and Pepper Music Series (tickets available at saltandpepperpresentsorearandreeves.eventbrite.com) we will also be sharing some pictures shared by other members of the band each day.

One of the first pictures ever taken of the Skyliters. (Photo credit: Jimmy Moore)

-Mike O'Rear

07/24/2022

THE SKYLITERS HISTORY:

Many of the Skyliters shows from 1986 forward have been complemented by having our friends from the Muscle Shoals Horns back us. I first became friends with Harrison Calloway and Harvey Thompson back around 1970 and later became friends with Ronnie Eades, who will be playing with us Thursday, July 28th during WC Handy Week for the Salt and Pepper Music Series.

For the last several years, the Muscle Shoals Horns, under the direction of Charles Rose, have been kind enough to help a bunch of old guys feel the music. Charles is out with the Lyle Lovett tour again this year, and won't be able to do our upcoming show. We also send along good vibes to our friend Harvey Thompson, who has always been a big part of our gatherings. Pictured below is a live shot of Harvey at the McEwen, TN Fourth of July Celebration in 1999.

-Mike O'Rear

07/23/2022

In addition to our Skyliters History posts leading up to our show at the Mane Room in Florence for the Salt and Pepper Music Series (tickets available at saltandpepperpresentsorearandreeves.eventbrite.com) we will also be sharing some pictures shared by other members of the band each day.

We didn't know we were a dance orchestra! (Photo credit: Jimmy Moore)

-Mike O'Rear

07/23/2022

In addition to our Skyliters History posts leading up to our show at the Mane Room in Florence for the Salt and Pepper Music Series (tickets available at saltandpepperpresentsorearandreeves.eventbrite.com) we will also be sharing some pictures shared by other members of the band each day.

Left-to-right: Jim Messer, John Marston, Mike O'Rear, Gene Craig, Sonny Holley, Dickey Mayberry, and Jerry Brown. (Photo credit: Jimmy Moore)

-Mike O'Rear

07/23/2022

THE SKYLITERS HISTORY:

Here's a picture of the Skyliters playing a charity event in the mid-'80s. We were always able to dress nice for our shows because our friend Chunky Moore, who ran Moore's Department Store, always furnished our outfits. Most of the photos made from the '80s onward have been done by Howard Johnson (HoJo.)

Our friends at the radio stations in both south-central Tennessee and north Alabama have always helped us to promote our charity events. At one of our gatherings not long ago, the subject was brought up about us not having a nationally-recognized record in the '60s, and we all agreed it would have probably been the death of us.

-Mike O'Rear

07/22/2022

THE SKYLITERS HISTORY:

In the '80s, the Skyliters started doing shows for various charities and all the surviving original members reunited to play shows again, and our main focus would be to enjoy being together and raising money for projects we really believed in. Our first big project was to make enough money to help restore the old Youth Center in Lawrenceburg, later raising money for high school bands, and installing Christmas lights for various communities.

In 1986, we started the Skyliters Scholarship Fund to secure scholarships for high school students, based not on musicianship or academics, but solely on need. This is still an ongoing project. You have somewhere you want us to play? We ain't cheap! Write a check to the Education Foundation and you've got our attention. We love playing festivals, corporate gatherings, and for city governments. One of our most dedicated mentors was a walking postman in Lawrenceburg, TN. W.D. Bud Webb will always be remembered for taking a bunch of teenage boys who were playing in beer joints to play before civic groups at luncheons and conventions. We all loved Mr. Webb.

Here's another rehearsal picture from around this time in the mid-'80s made in the back of Dickey Mayberry's piano store in Lawrenceburg, which became a meeting place and a hangout for most of us, if we ever got any loafing time.

-Mike O'Rear

07/21/2022

THE SKYLITERS HISTORY:

In 1971, Bobby Joe Stults rebuilt 13 Club and asked if we would come back to the state line again. We played a variety of clubs, fraternities, military bases during '71. Bobby's younger brother Gene Balentine was running 13 Club and sometime during the Thanksgiving/Christmas holidays, Bobby asked me if Gene wants to run the Stult's Package Store, would you like to have 13 Club, to which I responded "I don't have enough money to buy anything," and he said "who the hell said anything about money?" Hello, club operator! I'll never have anyone that I owe more to than Bobby Joe for giving me this break.

Once I became a club owner, the band kind of fragmented, and we all started playing with different groups, but we remained close friends and would get together from time to time. Gene Craig became the lead singer for the Stoned Rangers. Sonny Holley played lead guitar for many different groups, including the Ronnie Allen Group (who had a hit with "Juvenile Delinquent.") John Marston played bass with Moody's Goose and other groups. Unfortunately, Sonny Royal and Eric Doerflinger both passed away extremely young.

While I was running the club in 1972, my old friends Jimmy Johnson and Roger Hawkins approached me about becoming professional manager of Muscle Shoals Sound Publishing Company. As hard as it was, I tried to hold down both jobs, but as time went on, I committed to becoming a music publisher. With the help of a lady named Joni Rhodes, Roger Sovine, Francis Preston (BMI) and a book "This Business of Music" that Jimmy Johnson gave me, I became a publishing professional manager and later on, travelled all over the world to secure regional sub-publishing deals.

The below picture features just a few members of the great crew we had at Muscle Shoals Sound during the '70s, pictured are myself, Dianne Butler, Greg Hamm and Steve Melton. The rest of the crew included Carol Little, Jimmy, Roger, David and Barry, the rhythm section, and the engineering staff, headed by Jerry Masters, who all turned out some phenomenal music during the '70s.

-Mike O'Rear (The Skyliters)

07/20/2022

THE SKYLITERS HISTORY:

We're coming into 1968, when the state line on Highway 13 and 43 really began to flourish. Bobby Joe Stults, and his wife Martha Anne, built the original 13 Club north of Florence in 1968 and asked us to be their house band. Musicians from all over the South came to this club. At this club is where I met Jerry Masters, Tommy Cogbill, Bobby Woods, Hawk Hawkins, Maurice Tarpe Tarrat, and a host of others, who were either session players at the time or later became session players. Jerry became house engineer at FAME in Muscle Shoals and later moved to Muscle Shoals Sound, where we worked together again for about six years (great engineer.) Jerry and I remain friends to this day. We traded back and forth between the 13 Club, the Ponderosa, and the 31 Blue Spot as the house band from '68-'70.

The below picture was taken by my great friend Jimmy Moore, who did most of the album cover work for RCA during the '60s. He took this picture and entered it into a photo exhibition along with many celebrity photos he had taken. He invited me to come to the showing and introduced me to Chet Atkins, John D. Loudermilk, and George Hamilton IV. I'll always be grateful to Jimmy for helping the Skyliters with his photographs all through the '60s. He had a knack for dressing acts in formal attire in an outside setting, which was really unique at the time. After seeing this photo, Pete Carr always said that he wanted my guitar. I wish a thousand times that I had given it to him because it perished in a club fire in 1970.

In 1970, some idiot bombed 13 Club, and we lost all our equipment. We had to start over completely, and bought all-new equipment from Hughley's Music Store in Nashville. Several of the guys that worked in that music store also played in bands that we traded a lot of shows with, including Steve Bess and the Gators, Charlie McCoy and the Escorts, and also the Fairlanes (a horn band from Nashville.) Incidentally, Steve Bess's mother owned and ran Tootsie's Orchid Lounge on Broadway in Nashville.

-Mike O'Rear

07/19/2022

THE SKYLITERS HISTORY:

Pictured below is one of our many rehearsals during some of our '80s reunion shows. But back to 1967, and hello Ponderosa Club. Not a half-a-mile from where we started in 1961, we were now playing for Mr. George Bailey. We continued playing shows in the four-state area, while playing for George and his sons, Bud, Rod, and Slick. I had graduated high school with their oldest brother, Butch in May of '61. Great family, and great people to work for. Gene Craig, being from the Mt. Pleasant area, knew almost everyone in Murray County, and our old doorman, who had worked the door at Roy's Truck Stop, was now a city policeman in Mt. Pleasant. He went on to become chief of police, and was very lenient to some of our fellow traveling musicians who were back and forth from Muscle Shoals to Nashville.

We started traveling more to Mississippi, playing shows at the King of Clubs for Charlie Gooch and Roy Albright, and had tremendous crowds to play for. Our best co-bill act was the Willie Mitchell Combo. Yes, that's right: an all-black and an all-white band entertaining and almost all-white crowd in Mississippi. Tell me that music don't tear down barriers.

I missed talking about my early friendship with Arthur Alexander, which began in an all-black club back in 1964, which was just across the highway from the El Rancho. Many nights, I would accompany the club owner over to The Hideaway, which was a hangout for Arthur and his cousin Frank. The Skyliters were one of the few bands still remaining that played shows with Arthur at the old Ebony Club and the Hideaway Club, which were all-black clubs in 1964. Arthur was a great songwriter/artist who later had his songs cut by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Other people have talked about the rougher side of him, but I knew him as a gentle soul.

-Mike O'Rear

07/18/2022

THE SKYLITERS HISTORY:

Enter 1966, and a regular house gig at the 31 Blue Spot. Incidentally, here is a picture of our stage manager, Foxy Griffin, who was a radio station manager for years, and helped us tremendously with our career. He even gave us a radio show as early as 1962, and helped to promote our first two single records on the Dixie Network radio stations. By mid-1965, Donnie Srygley had joined us on guitar. People from Decatur and from Athens State College as well as Huntsville came to the line because it was the only place where they could dance and drink alcohol.

Eric Doerflinger was slapping the drums and it was one of the best sounds we ever had. I booked several national acts into the 31 Blue Spot in '66 and '67, including Jerry Lee Lewis. He totally destroyed a piano I rented. Some of the other people that had preceded me in playing music at the 31 Blue Spot were the Mitchell Brothers, Johnny Sandlin, Joe Walk, and an older black gentleman who never gave me his last name, but played under the name of Booker T.

There was also another club just up the road in Elkton called Rainey's, which was strictly a college club, and we played there a lot of our off-nights for Buster and Don. You could stand out on Highway 53 just south of Ardmore and see a solid line of cars coming from Huntsville on Friday and Saturday nights. Those were some great gigs.

-Mike O'Rear (Skyliters)

07/17/2022

THE SKYLITERS HISTORY:

We moved in late '64 from the El Rancho club to the Raven Club, which had originally been Eddy's, and continued to play there, along with doing our college gigs and an extended list of military bases. A lot of the shows we played at the military NCO and officer's clubs were shows I double-booked with the Bill Black Combo, Ace Cannon, and the Willie Mitchell Combo.

We extended our playing to several clubs in Huntsville, AL, such as the Peppermint Lounge and Amvet's Club (for Marvin Rooker, a great club-owner,) and the Cotton Club. Also, in Tennessee, the Skylark (owned by Shorty Malone,) Lincoln Lounge, and the 31 Blue Spot, which I later became a partner in with Roy Lewter. So begins the bartending by day, and the singing and playing by night. Whew!

-Mike O'Rear

07/16/2022

THE SKYLITERS HISTORY:

Through 1962, the Honey Club and the Sugar Shack were home base, then came our next offer, to move to Norman Balentine's new club called the El Rancho on Highway 69 above Florence, and it was really something. It had a capacity for 300 people or more, and it was full by dancing time three nights a week. Bessie Balentine, who was the bartender, and Shelby Hardin, who was a waitress there (who later on ran Johnny's Club and supported live music for years on the line) were both working at the Rancho when we first started there. Often we had great singers and players sit in with us at the Rancho, like Bill Colfield on saxophone, Lou Roberts on piano, Donnie Culver on bass and Billy Ausbrooks on guitar.

Mr. Balentine started bringing in nationally-known acts in early '64, and we got to meet and play shows with Ace Cannon, Charlie Rich, Bill Black Combo, and we were having a ball. Jerry Brown joined us as saxophone player that year, and Mr. Balentine gave us weekends off to play shows at the University of Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee Tech, and Middle Tennessee State. We also started picking up military bases during the year of '64, and I started booking several of the acts I had met from the Ray Brown agency in Memphis. Donny Dortch and Betty Crutcher, along with Ray Brown and Alan Lawler, helped me tremendously with my booking.

Other bands that were playing in the area included: Hollis Dixon Band, the Del-Rays, the Weejuns, and Dan Penn and the Pallbearers. There were lots of high school reunions and graduations to play, and we also started doing programs for elementary and high school assembly shows.

-Mike O'Rear Skyliters l-r Jim Messer,John Marston,Dickey Mayberry,Gene Craig,Sonny Holley,Mike ORear

07/15/2022

07/15/2022

THE SKYLITERS HISTORY:

By the third week of November of 1961, the Rebels, as we were known, were playing Roy's Truck Stop on Rockdale Hill in Murray County, TN for Shanty Roy, who was one of the leading no-limit hold 'em players in the country, as I had mentioned in the previous post. We were playing through the Christmas holidays to a packed house, and Sonny Holley was adding some electric lead guitar. After playing the Air Force base NCO Club in Smyrna, TN, which was called the Skyline Club, we changed our name to the Skyliners. After another group out of California had a national hit under the name Skyliners, we changed our name once again to the Skyliters, because we already had regional records playing on the radio.

Two months later, we were still at the truck stop, playing on Friday and Saturday nights. John Marston began playing bass in early spring, and we were offered a job playing three nights a week at the Honey Club in Pulaski, TN. And here came Dickey Mayberry with that awesome B3 organ sound. We started drawing some incredible crowds to the Honey Club. I remember you couldn't even get in the club, which brought our next offer to open at a brand new club in Minor Hill, TN for Arnold Long at the Sugar Shack.

Arnold was quite a character, a stocky, red-headed, ruddy-complected guy who decided on weekends, if there wasn't somebody starting a fight, he would start one himself. We had customers coming from Huntsville, Decatur, and the Tri-Cities, and the band was starting to tighten up.

-Mike O'Rear

07/14/2022

I had just come back from the army in the first week of November of 1961. I called up Gene Craig from Sandy Hook, TN and Jim Messer from Lawrenceburg, TN, and asked if they'd like to play in a band with me. Neither one was old enough to drive, so I always had to go and pick them up when we had a practice.

By late December, Sonny Holley came aboard, playing lead guitar. And in early '62, John Marston brought one of the first electric bass guitars to our band. Later that spring, Dickey Mayberry added a Hammond organ sound to the group. Gene, for a young guy, had a really distinct voice, almost like a Rod Stewart-type voice, and I really liked his singing.

Roy's Truck Stop was not only a restaurant, but a bar and dancehall also. Since Shanty Roy had a reputation early on as a great poker player, almost all of the gambling people from as far away as Nashville seemed to make it to the club every weekend. I remember a little window in the side of the dancehall wall that had a door that opened from either side. Patrons could dance by, tap on the small door, put money in there, dance back by, and have a shot of moonshine whiskey. Never saw that anywhere else other than that club.

-Mike O'Rear (Skyliters )

02/09/2022

Come out and support great local songwriters each third Thursday of each month!

https://muscleshoalsrecordings.com/colbert-songwriters-champys/

February 9, 2022 Come out to Champy’s Famous Fried Chicken in Muscle Shoals, AL for an amazing night of great Southern food and legendary Shoals songwriters playing their latest material. This event will be proudly sponsored each month by Colbert County Tourism. Don’t miss this fantastic event w...