Pat Boone

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the pot West That's Podcast.
My guest today is the one and only at Boon,
Pat glad to be talking to well, glad to talk
to you, But I've got to correct what you just said.
I'm not the one and only Pat Boone. My brother
is married to another one. Really is life is Patricia

(00:29):
and that makes her another Pat Boon. Okay, hopefully there's
not too much confusion. A little bit of trivia, know
though they can tell us apart for sure. Okay, you're
pretty active on social media. Do you have someone do
that for you or do you do it yourself? It
takes a circus here for me, as you've noticed that,

(00:52):
I have to have people who actually know where the
buttons are how to push them. I'm trying to catch up.
I you know, I'm I'm in about I'm about up
to in tech, but I'm trying to get into one
and I'm just I'm not there yet. Okay, do you
have a smartphone? Do you use it? Yeah? I do
I have that. I'm using that pretty well, although I

(01:13):
lost it yesterday and I couldn't even figure out how
to get to where it is. I had to call
my tech guy, and and he got on his computer
and located it. It was in my house up in
the bathroom, but I couldn't find it. So I am
not a tech whiz. Okay, let's go back. You grew

(01:34):
up in Nashville. I did. I was born in Jacksonville, Florida,
but I grew up in Nashville. Yet, but what what
age did you move to Nashville to age of two?
And my brother one year younger than me at the
age of one, and my dad a building contractor, architect,
Mama registered nurse, and they moved from uh, from Florida,

(01:55):
from from actually Tallahassee. Although I was born in Jacksonville
and and then to Nashville where I grew up. Yeah,
I'm I'm a I'm a homeboy in Nashville, but also
in Florida. Okay, So what motivated them to move to Nashville.
My dad, as I say, an architect and uh and
it would be contractor, building contractor. His uncle, uncle Jack Boone,

(02:19):
had his own contracting company in Nashville, very successful. So
his nephew, Archie A. Boone, the first Boon in the
phone book. You can't get ahead of a A Boone
And so uh, he was offered the the job with
his uncle, and he moved to Nashville and Mom and
his two boys and eventually two daughters as well. And uh,

(02:42):
and he not only became a very valued partner employee,
but eventually when the time came for the opportunity, he
had junior partners with him when Uncle Jack retired, and
I was able to, thank God to help him obtain
ownership of his own company. It was called the Boon

(03:04):
Contracting Company anyway, and his partners weren't Boone's. Okay, So
you're born in the middle of the depression, your father
has a job. What was your economic situation growing up
in the family, I would say lower middle class. Uh. Daddy,
as I say he was, he worked for his uncle.

(03:25):
He didn't have it was not his own company for
a long time. And uh. And after my brother and me,
he and Mama had daughters, and soon he had four kids.
We did not have a car until I was in
the eighth grade. We had to we had the company
pickup truck, Boon Contracting. Now you have to get six people,

(03:48):
my mom and dad and four kids into that. It
was not a big It was not a big pickup
truck like today, and so he built a wood uh
he was a carpenter as well, so he built nice
wooden bench in the back from my brother and me,
and we thought it was really fun during the earlier days,
riding in the back, the wind whipping us and all that.

(04:09):
When we were six, seven, eight years old, and the
two girls got to ride up front with Mama. On
rainy days though, and snowy days, really cold weather. Somehow
we would cram Mama, Daddy, me, my brother and two
sisters into the cab of that little truck. So by
the time I was in the sixth grade, I kept begging, Daddy,

(04:31):
can't we have a car, just anything with doors on
it that I we can, we can get out of
the back of the truck riding in the wind and
so on. Of course it was embarrassing. He takes us
to school on rainy days. Of course we'd have raincoats
and hats but our umbrellas. But we were getting out
of the back of a truck at the at the

(04:51):
grammar school, and even kids were from I think poorer circumstances.
They come up or the church in cars of son
some type. But Daddy was frugal and he said, we'll
buy a car when I can afford it. And you
boys are well taken care of on that bench in
the back. And today, as I ride along the freeway

(05:12):
and I see uh tenerants and laborers sitting in the
back of trucks being whipped along the free we I
always want to lean and say, hey, I've been there,
I've done that. Okay, I've been to Nashville. But obviously
many years later, and there's downtown in the suburbs. How
far did you live from downtown Nahville. We were outside

(05:34):
the city limits at that point. We were out on
Granny White Pike. Granny White Pike, and it's still called
that today. It is now in the city limits that
city of them as were greatly expanded, but we were
outside And and then off Granny White Pike was Lone
Oak Road, a little road off the side. It was
called Lone Oak Road because during earlier days there was

(05:56):
a lone Oak that served as a hanging tree kremlins
who sometimes hung on that Lone Oak well. That went
eventually from Granny White Pike to a thriving part of
Nashville called Green Hills, And it's one of the really
prestigious places to live. That and Bell Mead in Nashville,

(06:16):
the high class places. But it's a mile or two
long Lone Oak Road until you get to Granny White Pike.
And just off Granny White Pike is still that house
where I grew up brother and two and two sisters.
And when I'm in Nashville, I don't go to a motel.
I go right to the oh nine Lone Oak Road,

(06:37):
very close to the side of the road. Nice house,
but very modest and upstairs. Uh. After the two boys
and the two girls moved out, Uh, we you know,
went to school or married or whatever, and uh and Daddy,
being a contractor and better off by then turned what
had been an attic uh into a set and floor

(07:01):
where he created a nice bedroom in bathroom mama, and
a guest room. And that's where I always stay. And
what had been the attic that I claimed when Nick
and I my brother were sixteen and fifteen, we were
sharing the same bed and we each wanted our own bed,
you know, and so I asked if I could have
the attic. Well, it was just an unfinished attic where

(07:22):
you know, you put all this stuff you don't have
room for downstairs and old clothes and suitcases and boxes.
But I put a cop mom and Daddy let me
have the attic, and I called it my penthouse at sixteen,
and I slept on the attic and Nick could have
the nice bed downstairs. So do you go to public

(07:43):
school or religious school? And what kind of student are you?
And how do you fit in with the people. Well,
it's both. I was in a secular school called Burton Elementary,
and it was by road up your White Pike about
half a mile, but if you go down Lon Oak

(08:05):
Road and up it's about three quarters of a mile.
Or if you cut across the back pasture behind our house,
it's like a quarter of mine because Daddy had bought
ten acres and this little house for five thousand dollars
in I guess it was and uh, And I was
six years old when he when he when we moved

(08:26):
to that house. So when when I was running late,
as I often was, I would just run across the
back pasture, watching where I stepped because we had cows
and um, and then go through the fence and get
to my class on time. But otherwise I would either
let Daddy take me, or I would take a bike.

(08:46):
I mean, by the time I was well, I was
still in high school, I could ride my bike and
I did, and so you know, I just got by.
I figured out how to make it that way. That
was a secular school, but when high school time came,
we were strong Christians. We had Bible studies in our
home and went to church service every time, and the
door was open. So I knew then and I wanted

(09:10):
a my education, but in a Christian context, I mean,
for me at thirteen, this was I think an unusual choice.
All my friends were going to secular high schools. But
I wanted to go to Lipscomb High School, which was
a Christian high school and college. And but but to
do that, I had to help Daddy economically. And so

(09:31):
my brother and I worked in the summertime as laborers
and the Boon Contracting company, digging ditches, pouring concrete, pushing wheelbarrows,
toting lumber for the carpenters. And we earned the handsome
price I think that first year of a dollar quarter
an hour, and we would put that aside to help
pay for clothes and books, and knew the truition in

(09:54):
the Christian high school was not that great. But with
Daddy with two boys and two girls, he was having
to you know, really pinch pennies. He had to pay
his taxes after all. And in the contracting business, by
the way, uh, you you make bids on the jobs
you want to do, and you're competing with others who

(10:15):
want that same job. And at that point it was
just houses. It went eventually to be high schools, college dorms, uh,
military installations, churches. I mean he got big for Daddy eventually,
but back then, to bid on a house, he had
to try to make the lowest bid, but still a

(10:36):
bid that he could do it for in that price,
because if he didn't get it built well for what
he bid it, he had to eat the rest himself.
So Daddy, you know, with four kids, you know, Mama
was something of not a spendthrift. But I always compare
them to democrat in the Republican Mama wanted come one,

(10:59):
come all, not just people, but pets, dogs, cats, come
and come on eat. We got plenty. Daddy was the Republican.
Wait a minute, I've got a budget here. I gotta
pay for this somehow. And that yin and yang was
what we lived with. So you have ten acres. You
have cows. What else is going on that land? And
are you milking the cows? Who's doing all that work? Yes, yes,

(11:22):
to that, all of it. We also had pigs. Sometimes
we had fenced off areas for pigs. We had to
we had to slop the hogs. We had chickens. We
had turkeys and rabbits. We had a vegetable garden on
some of that, a big vegetable garden which Nick, my brother,
and I and sometimes the sisters helped with. Daddy somehow

(11:45):
found the time to take care of all that. But
we had to work like we were really on a farm,
which we were. I milked the cows and Nick and
I took turns. We usually only had one cow to
milk because the rest we were either raising to sell.
But we only need one good milk cow. And the
one that that I melt most was a milk a

(12:09):
cow named Rosemary a Jersey, and she she was incredible
milk producer. My brother and I were known to drink
as much as a gallon a day a piece, because
we drink a quarter milk for breakfast, and a quarter
milk with lunch if we were home, and then a
quarter milk for dinner and then more doing our homework

(12:29):
before we went to bed, I mean, and then we
made butter and uh sometimes well we didn't make cottage
cheese and we didn't have enough of that, but we
could sometimes churn and make butter. And we learned what
blue john milk was. If the if the cows eight onions, uh,
and we had plenty of them growing out there in
the past. It infiltrated the milk and turned its sour.

(12:54):
But we learned to use that and cooking, and sometimes
we just drink it. Blue john milk it was called,
but you know it was it was really like a farm,
and we milked Rosemary, my brother and I took turns.
He would milk. We we worked it out this way.
I would milk one night and the next morning, and
then he would milk the next night and the next morning,

(13:16):
so that we each milked only once a day. The
only trouble was sometimes one of us would forget that
we hadn't done the milking on that particular occasion, and
we met an angry cow whoever had to milk the
next one that after one session had been skipped. But
but it was that's what it was that cows would

(13:37):
get out once in a while go through the neighbor's
yards who didn't have cows, and we'd have to go
chase them. And sometimes they'd be going through the laundry
hanging on the neighbor's lines, and I had to go
chase the family cow and get her back in, and
we'd prepare the fence. But that was part of my
growing up days. Until I was well into high school.

(13:58):
I was still milking rosemary while I was dating the
girl I was going to marry eventually. Okay, so in school,
are you a popular kid? Are you a good student? Oh? Yes,
yes I can. I can truthfully say yes because I
was insatiably curious active. I wanted to be involved in everything.

(14:19):
When I got to be as a freshman, I laid
out Not that I was that methodical, but but I
did think about what I wanted to accomplish in high school.
I wanted, first of all, to make straight A grades,
which I did eventually. Somewhere along the line, they did
an i Q test, And what they've told me Mama

(14:40):
and others that were in school with me, is that
that my i Q was reported at one seventy, which
is very high. Well, that put a heavy responsibility on me,
and so I did make straight a's in all my classes.
I never made bees and anything. And uh I I
was president of the of the secon the sophomore class,

(15:02):
and then I set my sides to be president of
the student body. And now it was a smallish Christian
high school of maybe three students. That's not big, but
it was our little world. And so when I was
like sophomore and junior, I would try to make friends
with the freshman coming in because I knew from experience

(15:24):
that the juniors and seniors couldn't care less about the
those ignorant little sophomores and freshmen, but they were going
to vote on who was going to be the student
body president towards the end of the junior year. So
when the time I was a school UH cart I
was on all the teams baseball, basketball, we didn't have football.

(15:47):
I was captain the baseball team and UH and and
I was I was good on the basketball team, but
not the star. But I was good and very active
and on the A team. And then UH school cartoonists.
I wrote a sports column for the paper, and I
mean I was and when the day came along. We

(16:07):
had to have a clean up day. I would volunteer
to be the chairman of clean up day. I mean
I was angling towards being the student body president. Well,
the day came but for the election, and I had
made friends with all the sophomores and freshman But a
guy was transferred from a from a reform school to

(16:31):
our school. Who was he was? They brought him in,
I thought, hoping they could redeem him. But all he
was a great athlete and he became all state baseball basketball.
Russ Wingo was his name, and he decided to run
for student body president. Well guess what the athlete won
the election. I was. I was so taken back. I

(16:55):
mean I was crushed. I had set my size for
three years and and worked at it and did all
these things. And then Rush Wingo comes along. And because
he can we didn't have three point shots, but he could.
He could score, and he could. He was good in
baseball A well, I so was I. But that wasn't
good enough. So the summertime came and I got over

(17:18):
my initial pain and decided I would do the Christian thing.
And I went to Russ. I said, look, Russ uh,
you're the you have the president student body, but you're
gonna have to represent us in the regular school associations
with other high schools, and uh, I know you're gonna
be busy. And I didn't want to say you don't
know how to do it, and uh so if you want,

(17:40):
I'll represent you as the president, but I'll do some
of that that grunt work for you. And he said,
oh boy, okay, yeah, you do that. I don't know
how to do any of that stuff. So I was
willing to be his surrogate. But guess what happened during
the summer. He was older, he was older than we were.

(18:01):
He had been in a reform school and so he
was like eighteen, and he and one of the girls
during the summertime got married. I'm not sure what caused
that to happen, but they did get married in the summertime.
And then we come back to school. It turns out
that our bylou by laws said you can't be married

(18:22):
and be the student body president. So we had another
election and I was elected. I became the student body
president after all, and that unlikely. After I was willing
to give up and serve him, and you know, there
was a great lesson than that. For me. It's stuck
with me all my life. You know, you don't lose
by by helping somebody else win. Okay, Now was there

(18:45):
music in the house? And when did you realize you
could sing well? I was asked that recently. I said,
I was singing before I ever thought about being a singer,
because it was part of our emily. First of all,
in church, we all sang in church and and and
our church background didn't even have piano, no instrumental music

(19:07):
because we didn't see an example for it in the
New Testament, so we didn't have piano Oregon. It was
all acapella. So in all of our church experiences, Daddy
was singing bass, Mama was singing soprano, and then my
sisters would maybe learn how to sing an alto part,
and my brother would sing tenor. And I tried to

(19:28):
sing bass along with Daddy. So we were singing uh
in church every church service, and then at home we
would sing some of the church songs. And then at
school and Mama played a little ukulele and a few
chords that somebody had taught her. I learned those few
chords so I could make them sort of uh fit

(19:49):
any kind of song I wanted to sing, usually simple
songs or church songs. I could use those few chords
um to to accompany me my brother, And so we
sang songs and our family gatherings like I want to
take he said, a middle journey. Well, I set my
heart leddies said he could sing the harmony part, or

(20:12):
I would too. I would either he could sing melody,
I sing harmony, sentimental journey. And so we would sing
those songs and our family gatherings. They loved it, you know,
pat Nick singing the songs and maybe Mama playing the
ukulele or me doing it and then uh. And then
at school, when anything came along for anybody to do

(20:34):
some singing, I'd raise my hand because I knew I
could and I liked it. And then if there was
ever anything for a solo part in a school function,
you know, well the teacher learned that I could carry
the tune, carry the melody and do it. And even
when I got into college, but in high school, I
became known as blue Moon Boone because whenever there was

(20:57):
some kind of anything going on in our Christian high
sto cool and there was a lot of singing going
on then, and you know, we put on little shows
and have entertainments, and it's singing at parties and you know,
packed and carry a tune, he can sing and uh.
And so I became known as blue Moon Boone because
if at the drop of a hat, anybody, any if

(21:19):
you need a guy to sing a song, I would
sing blue Moon. You saw me standing alone, without a
dream in my heart, without a love of my own.
And the girls liked it, and the guys put up
with it. They thought it was fine it they didn't
have to do it, and so it was. It was
just a fun thing that I learned I could do now.

(21:42):
When I was about twelve thirt um, mama or somebody
took me to the bell Meat Happiness Club, which was
in bell Meat, nice neighborhood, nice theater and and on
Saturday afternoons it was a place where mama's could bring
all their kids for about three hours because there would

(22:02):
be cartoons. There would be if you can remember, cereals,
I mean Westerns and Perils of Pauline and comed comedy,
uh cereals and then uh and then a movie that
was appropriate for kids, you know, and the manager of
that theater was Dr Jordan's. Ed Jordan's he was from

(22:26):
vaudeville days, so he thought it'd be nice to have
a little, uh, little vaudeville show before the movie started,
to even make the thing a little longer. Now, you
never tried to sing or perform for a more unruly
audience than a theater full of little kids, because they

(22:46):
weren't really interested in what was going on in stage.
But you know, sometimes it would be. But it would
be a pianist. God could play piano. Somebody could tap dance.
You can imagine the hooting and howling that the kids
gave who I was trying to tap dan play an
instrument of some sort. Well, of course I could sing
a tune, so again I ed Jordan's The Vaudevillian took

(23:10):
an interest. Now, the way I got involved in that
was because the reason I did was not because I
could sing so much, is because whoever performed. There were
three performers every Saturday, and I learned this the first
time I was there. And whoever the kids would vote
for the most favorite, number one, number two, number three,

(23:31):
number one would get a banana split at the drug
store next door pharmacy and and the second one coming
in second would get a Sunday and the third place
would get a nice cone with a double dip. Well,
that's what enticed me, so I got MoMA to take
me to downtown to the Elizabeth Bryant Combs Dance studio

(23:55):
where this dance instructor auditioned the kids from the various
high schools. And right away, because I could saying Blue Moon,
you saw me standing alone, she put me on the
on the show and and I went on. I forget
who I was with, what the other performers were. I
know I was very nervous, but at I think thirteen,

(24:16):
I went on and saying something and ed Jordan's had
hurt me in a rehearsal, and he says, now, kids,
you may not knew what I'm talking about. I think
this is the next Bing Crosby. Let's welcome Pat Boone. Well,
the kids said, you know, they give me a little
shouts and applause, and for some reason they seem to
like me singing. And I got to Banana Split while

(24:40):
I was hooked, and I went back as many times
on Saturdays for the next couple of years as Elizabeth
Briant Combs would let me come and uh and sing
other songs. And I would stand backstage and nervous and
warming up, and you know, and now I was learning
what it was to go in front of an audience
of un truly kids. But but but I found that

(25:03):
if I sang well enough, they could they seem to
enjoy it. Now mama's bringing their kids would sometimes be
there at the beginning, and they heard me sing, and
they had invite me to sing it their ladies clubs.
And then and then the men, some of the men
found out I could sing, and they I'd sing for
the Junior Chamber of Commerce, or the Elks Club or

(25:27):
the the men's men's meetings. And I had a pianist
who named Ruth Maori, who's a piano teacher. And I
took about two lessons and got her hooked, and then
I I never took any more lessons, but she she
could play anything in any key, so she would accompany
me to these meetings, and I was I became known
as that kid out on Lone Oak Road that knows

(25:47):
all the pop songs and has somebody to play for him.
And by the way, he doesn't charge anything, Just feed him,
feed him a lunch and maybe you'll show up. Well,
I did it purely for the fun of it. Me
and I was happy if I got fed. But and
Ruth same thing. We just enjoyed what we were doing.
She enjoyed singing it performing piano for me, and I

(26:11):
enjoyed the singing and the applause. And it was just
it was a hobby, like you know. And then in
high school, the principal of the high school knew that
I liked to sing, and he he talked to the
radio station w s i X, big station in Nashville, said,
this kid out in our school likes to sing and

(26:31):
the and uh, and he he could be a host
of a teen talent show with teen talent from all
over Nashville and all over the Middle Tennessee. They'd come
in and and audition for somebody, I don't know who
the audition for. I just showed up on Saturday morning
and I hosted the the Youth on Parade show on

(26:54):
the local radio station. It was a It was a
big station though, and it got a big audience because
who who high school kid's gonna listen to on the radio,
but other high school kids and so and so, I
was hosting again piano players, instrumental players. I don't think
we had tap dancers on radio, but that's another incident

(27:15):
I'll tell you about in my life. But as a DJ.
But but that show was very popular. So I got
used to hosting UH Youth on parade and and doing
commercials what we had. And Frank Bobo could he took
over for Ruth Maray. He could play anything in any
key and UH and so we had a good half

(27:37):
hour show. And I'd come down on Saturday's host that
and then go back and shoot some baskets and whatever
else I was doing. That just became part of my life.
But I became known as that kid out on Lone
Oak Road that knows all the singing all the songs
in high school. Well, that takes you up to to
my high school graduation when I when I became the

(27:59):
student body and president, and about a year later year
and a half, became engaged to my high school sweetheart,
Shirley Foley. But but all during this time when I
was in chapel services, because it was a Christian high school,
leading singing in church congregation. Now, because as I say,

(28:21):
we didn't have instrumental music. We needed song leaders. So
by the time I was in high school, I was
going out to country churches and saying no One Druss
love of Jesus, singing his mercy and his grace. I
didn't know what this was, but I was beating some
kind of time. I didn't know if it was correct time,

(28:42):
but I was leading the congregation of three or four people,
sometimes with the mic, sometimes without a cappella song leading.
It was part of our worship services. So again, uh,
I was getting experience that I had no idea was
going to come in Andy. I was going to be
a teacher, preacher. I thought that was sort of what

(29:04):
I was headed towards, thinking of a way I could
use my life and what would be useful and helpful
and maybe pleasing to God and the ones that were
influencing me. Right then, we're Christian high school teachers, and
I thought, and they were preachers too on Sundays in
many churches. So I thought, well, that's the most worthwhile

(29:24):
thing I could do with my life. I mean, being
a singer, a pop singer, was the farthest thing. I
mean I dreamed about it, how fun it would be
when I was milking Rosemary you know, I was thinking, boy,
if I was on the Art of God Free show
like Julius Lorosa was at the time, you know, I
could I could do that show in the morning, I

(29:47):
could go to college in the afternoon, and I could
do things for worthy charities, as I knew some entertainers did,
and boy, that would be great. I didn't voice it
in a prayer, but I was thinking it out loud
kind of during that those days. The day came when
I replaced Julius the Rosa on the Arthur Godfrey Show,

(30:07):
and it didn't take much much. It wasn't much time
after I was last milking the Rosemary the cow, which
is another story, a dizzying two or three years after
I married Shirley. Now most people see Nashville as a

(30:28):
country music town. Was it country music? And was it integrated? Integrated?
Let's see that was there also popular music? What was
the feel for the music? Into What degree were you
listening to the radio and what stations? A very good
question because it was already known as Music City, USA.

(30:48):
But that was largely country. The Grand Old Opry was
there and that went out over all over the country
on Saturday nights. The Grand Old opry and institution in
country music and country music for farmers. Were they were it,
I mean they were. They were ensconced and beautiful homes
all over town, you know, web peers and uh and
all the ones you can think of had lovely homes

(31:11):
in the loveliest neighborhoods. And they were doing you know,
shows all over town. And they were on local TV
though not national television, but it was mainly country, but
a show. A guy named Snooky Lanson was a pop
singer and orchestras around town in Nashville, and uh, he

(31:31):
became one of the singers on the Lucky Strike Hit
Parade on Saturday nights on h I forget which network
on national television, and he and Michelle mackenzie and a
couple of others became regular singers on the Lucky Strike
Hit Parade and had to sing all the current tunes

(31:53):
that were, you know, in the top ten and they
would yes or orchestra and dancers and they would produce
those songs on television and one a hometown boy, Snook
Snooky Lanson was one of the singers. Well, of course,
that became a big, a big show in Nashville and gradually, Uh,

(32:14):
there were artists who were crossing over from country into
pop to some extent, and songs like Tennessee Waltz Patti Page,
but it had been a big hit by read somebody
I've forgotten his name first but as a country hit.
And then Tony Bennett recorded Your Cheating Heart, and Hank
Williams and then Hank Williams tunes were being picked up

(32:36):
off country music and becoming pop hits in one form
or another. So now some of the pop artists were
coming to Nashville to record there. And of course we
had the studios, and we had to muse the technicians,
and we had everything. And so record companies began to

(32:56):
have their satellite offices. Decca, r c A, Victor Columbia
all had their setups in Nashville to record country, yes,
but also pop artists who began to come along, sometimes
singing country songs. That's the way it all happened, the integration.
As you were saying, okay, I got to ask, because

(33:18):
I always used to ask my mother what was it
like when television arrived? Now I know because the internet arrived,
But I have to ask you when did your family
get a television? Was television a big deal? Give me
your take on that. It was a tremendous deal. I mean,
we had a radio and that's what most everybody listen

(33:41):
to for entertainment and news whatever. Not for news so much,
but some news. But but the radio was it. And
and I listened to Fibrum McGhee and Molly, I listened
to Red Skelton. I remember to all these radio shows
and and they were even tal that shows Ted Max Amateur.
Well it was first it was the Major Bows which

(34:04):
was big on radio. Frank Sinatra was on Major Bos
television radio show. It was it wasn't on TV, but
it was on radio with a big stut, big big
theater audience. Frank Sinatra and the Hoboken Four and you
know they sang. I've got a tape of their of
their first introduction on the Major Bos show. And he

(34:26):
became famous before Ted Mac took over his shows, and
Major Bos had the Frank Sinatra who was sort of
their spokesman, and the Hoboken Four. They danced, they danced,
tap danced and sang on radio. Frank Sinatra and the
Hoboken forth shine and you know it's about shining shoes

(34:46):
it was sort of could have been considered a racist song,
but it was. It was a big, big pop song.
They sang shine and dadad um Shine and Da Da Da.
I can't remember all the words. But then rump rump
bump bump tap dancing, and he won and he went
over so well that the major bows was doing live

(35:07):
shows across the country, like in the summertime, and he
he included Frank Sinatra in the Hoboken Forth. So all
these things were big on radio, and I could I
could see Fibruy McGee's closet open and everything fall out
of it, and Jack Benny when he went to the
safe to get some money, you know, and the footsteps

(35:27):
and it was all and gun smoke on radio. You
you know, it was all incredible on radio. But now
people that we knew got TV sets, and they were
a little circular screens, little oval or circular screens, and
if you were lucky, you could go to somebody else's
house and see TV. And that's when I first saw

(35:49):
Ed Sullivan show. Literally every dream I would be on
his show twelve times in the coming years. But but
then I was watching from a sofa and my girlfriend's
house she was not really a girlfriend, but she was
a friend who was a girl. And uh, we did
play spend the bottle a couple of times, some of
our friends at her house. But then we would stop

(36:11):
that and watch the little circular TV. So it was
it took a little time to do well. We didn't
have a TV set. I don't remember having a TV
set to regret, till I graduated from high school. I
just don't remember having a set in our home. We

(36:32):
we watched I watched it other people's houses because it
was a big deal. Just a big deal. So how
did you end up on the Arthur Godfrey Show. It's
a it's a it's a circuitous route. But but I
I have won a contest in Nashville, just a local

(36:54):
high school contest. And I had entered a number of
those and I didn't necessarily I didn't win. I didn't
win one of them. I'd come in second usually because
and I understood, because the judges were usually adults. The
kids could applaud and cheer if they wanted, but they
were polite and that the judges would would decide who

(37:15):
were the winners of the talent contest. And obviously a pianist,
or a tap dancer, or a trumpet player, an accordionist,
or somebody who obviously had to take lessons to learn something,
and they did well deserve to win more than a
guy who could just walk out and sing a pop song.
I mean, anybody could do that, but the Ted Mac.

(37:36):
There was a contest at at East Nashville High and
I went over just to do it for fun of it. Again,
I did all of my singing just for the fun
of it. So and I enjoyed the applause of the audience,
but I didn't expect it to lead to anything. So
I went over expecting, maybe if I was lucky, to
come in second. But the first prize was a trip

(37:57):
to New York and an audition with the Ted Mac
Amateur Hour. Well I knew this was special. I did.
I couldn't make up my mind whether the singer a
ballad because I could do those well, or an up tune.
And you know, something got people clapping. So I put
together a weird little medley of Oh you ain't God,

(38:18):
Oh we ain't got a better love money? Maybe ragged
and funny, but we're traveling along singing a song side
by side that was the up tune, but I would
I did a chorus of that, then segued into I
Believe for every drop of rain that falls a flower groves.
It was a big pop song, religious from Side by Side,

(38:42):
jumpy too, I Believe, a weird medley, but I enjoyed it.
The audience really liked it, and there was The judges
included a disc jockey named Hugh Cherry, who must have
been influential in this because he had taken a liking
to me singing on radio just in youth, on parade,
those shows around town, and he thought I had could

(39:04):
have a future as a singer, but he couldn't make
it happen. However, he was one of the judges. Now
I sang my song, I thought a young girl named
Shirley mcgoy was gonna win that night because she sang operatically,
she trained, She sang, you know, one of those great
opera songs, and I thought she's gonna win. And I

(39:25):
don't care if I come in second or third, it
doesn't matter, I told Mom and Daddy. They parked the
car in the in the parking lot outside the high school.
Look after I've sung, I'll go out to the car
so we can get away and not get caught up
in all the traffic. So that's what I did. I
sang my Medley and then Surety mcgoy standing in the wing,

(39:46):
she had already sung I can't. I went out to
the car and I hear somebody yelling from the back
door of the gym, Pat boone, where are you? Where
are you? I'm over here. I was by the cars.
I was ready to go home. Get in here, you've
one you want what? I came running into into the
backstage and here Shirley mcgoy crying on the side. You know,

(40:09):
she thought she was gonna win, and I did too,
and the crowd has gotten tired of wait wonder where
in the world Pat boone as he's our winner. And
so I went to the mic and I said, thank
you so much. I you know, I really appreciate this.
But I said, you know, this first prize is a
trip to New York and audition with with Ted Mack.
And I think Shirley mcgoy should do it, because I

(40:30):
think she's got a better chance of getting on the
Ted Max Show than than I would. So and they
would saying no, no, no, you're our winner, you've got
to go. So I had to go. I mean, I
felt terrible about it for her sake, But but I
was in flown to New York and a d C three. Okay,
had you been anywhere before? Did anybody you know about

(40:52):
a plane or anything? No, I've never been on a plane.
I was driven to Florida and the summers, my dad
would drive our two to our car. After we finally
got a two door Chevy, which I thought was the
most magnificent card. It had two doors, it had a heater,
didn't have a radio, but it had a heater and
two doors and a back seat so my brother and
I could sit and then one of the girls could sit. Now,

(41:13):
I mean, we would drive the six miles whatever it
is from Nashville to Jacksonville every summer. And but no,
I've never been on a plane. So I went on
this d C three and flew to New York to
put me in a seedy little hotel off Times Square,
and uh and I went on the show. They had
a I didn't have music. I didn't have my own

(41:35):
sheet music or anything, but they had a little a pianist. Really,
I think it was just piano to play for me,
but he knew I believe. So I sang I believe
for every drop of rain that falls, and I could
really sing it with heart and enthusiasm, and I won.
I won. The Ted mcameitur Just to be clear, this

(41:57):
is now television, not radio. It's television and radio, I think.
But it was television for sure, and I won, and
I was stunned, you know, And so they flew me
back home. Of course, the newspapers took pictures and local
boy wins, but I it was summertime, and again I
was not when minded. I didn't think I was gonna win.

(42:20):
I mean, there was some other talented people on that
amateur hour show and the guy singing a pop song.
I mean, anybody can do that. So I was leading
singing in a gospel meeting that summer. Uh. And that
was out in the country Beardstown, Tennessee. They there was
some of the farmhouses didn't even have phones, and so

(42:43):
I was out in this farmer's house on Thursday because
the vote, it was the votes were cards and letters
that would stream in to the TV network. And by
Thursday they they're counting all the cards and letters and
they determined who was the winner. Now they were trying
to reach me, but I was out in the country

(43:03):
and had no phones because I made no provision to
be reached. And the truck drove up in the in
the yard of this farmat's and I could hear boots
stomping on the porch and knocking on the screen door.
And I'm in. They're having lunch with the preacher and
the family that had ad us over for lunch. There's

(43:24):
a guy named Boone in there. Yeah, he's eating us
out of house and home here. Why uh, there's a
switchboard in the in Beardstown. We got to get him over.
Somebody from New York is trying to reach him. This
was the first time it The thought entered my mind.
Wait a minute, they might call me want me to
come back, which was true. Oscar Schoon marker from the

(43:47):
from the Ted Max Shows. Where are you? When I
got to the switchboard in this lady's house, Where are
you where? I said, I'm in Beardstown. When we got
to get you to New York Sun, You're our winner.
We gotta be have you here Saturday night. Right, got
to get you on a plane tomorrow Friday. So I
had to call my friend who came up to Beardstown
and drove me back to Nashville. There was a photographer

(44:09):
from the Nashville, Tennessee and taken a picture of me
packing going back to New York. Homeboy again, going to
be on the Ted mcamateur ar again. And so I
flew back. I sang a Perry Como song, No arms
will ever hold you like these arms of mine Perry
Como song, and uh, and I you know I was.

(44:31):
I was nervous, but I had had experienced singing on
radio and on local TV and the talent shows. I mean, gosh,
I wasn't a total newcomer. When the red light came on,
I knew what to do. So I sang and and
and Ted Max Show with just piano accompaniment. But uh,
I went home this time. I made sure I was reaching,

(44:53):
and I was. I went back the third time and
won three times in a row. Sang an Eddie Fisher song,
I'm behind you on your wedding day, on our wedding day,
only he's not walking down the aisle, he's in the
in the audience. And and so I won three times
and thinking that's got to lead to something, But it didn't.

(45:18):
I didn't it didn't lead to anything. I I flew
home from New York and uh, and it was in
the papers locally. And the one thing it did lead
to was an invitation from a guy named Bill Beasley
who had a little recording company, and he had me
come in and make a record on the rainy night

(45:38):
in the Owen Bradley studio. Two songs. One of them
I had written myself, a country song, the other would
be pop song. And neither one of them became hits,
but they got paid, played locally. But it didn't lead
to anything except in in the near future, which I
didn't know yet, there was a guy named Randy Wood
at Dot Records, who had a big dependent label based

(46:02):
in Gallatin, Tennessee, outside Nashville, and he was taking all
this in. Well. A few months went by, surely, and
I married, moved to Texas, and we're expecting our first
baby already when I got a call from Okay, just
to be clear, you moved to Texas to go to college.
To go to college, Yeah, by Texas, well, Denton, Texas,

(46:24):
North Texas State had a big music school, and because
I was doing a lot of musical things, I thought
I would learn to play an instrument. You know, I
could play a few chords in the ukulele. Maybe I
should maybe take piano or take some music courses. And
even if I'm just going to be a preacher teacher
like I thought I was, I gotta do something. I'm

(46:44):
married now and I've got to know I'm I'm gonna
be able to make a living being a singer, ain't it.
And so by my experience up go then so uh
new music school. We had dear friends we could stay
with in the big inning that would sort of help
us get settled into Denton, Texas great music school. And uh,

(47:07):
and when I get the call from New York, Hey,
you're we're having a shootout, not a shootout, but a
showdown with all the three time winners, which they would
have periodically whenever they would have enough three time winners,
which was very rare. Not many people would win twice
or three times. I mean, there were such odd kinds

(47:28):
of talent. There was I think Connie Francis No and
Margaret was on the show as a young girl from
Illinois and she got beat out. She sang beautifully. I've
got the videotape of her performance, but she got beat
that night by a guy who could play a classical
melody in a leaf in the hands, and people were

(47:54):
you know, the audience was so intrigued with this guy
they could play opportunes on a leaf that they they
didn't vote for Ann Margaret. I mean, you never knew
who was gonna win. But anyway, they called me and said,
you got to come back. You're one of about three
time winners. So I had to leave Shirley and the
baby were expecting and go to New York and and

(48:17):
and be away from school for a few days. And
I was on that show with the three time winners,
and uh, I don't remember what I sang that night.
I wish I did, but it was it went well,
I would say it did. It did go very well,
and and that they told me later, the people from
the show, that I was winning. However, something else happened

(48:41):
that I wasn't expecting. Arthur Godfrey, that's how you the question.
He had this big daytime show on every morning on
on CBS, and it was he was it on on
TV because he also had a Monday night talent show.
Monday nights, Arthur Godfrey's talents got shows. And then uh,

(49:01):
sometimes you'd be doing specials, big specials with his people
from his morning show. Uh, doing things on a specials
on Wednesday nights. I mean he was Mr TV. So
I'm there. After I sang my song that with the
three time winners, I couldn't. I didn't have money to
fly back home till Thursday to find out if I

(49:22):
was going to be the winner. So I went over
to CBS on my own and just went into the
to the studios on on whatever the street was. I
learned what which avenue it was CBS, and I just
asked if I could meet with the producer of the
Godfrey Show. I would like to audition, thinking maybe I
could get on the god Free Show since I'd won

(49:43):
the Ted Max Show before and he was gone, he
had already done his daytime show. But his producer, a lady,
was there, and she said come on in the studio.
And it was just a studio with an engineer and
no miss new music. So she said, well singing something,
So I sang I believe for every drop of rain
that falls of fly. I could have sung blue Moon,

(50:06):
but no, I sang I Believe, which comes to a
big finish. She said, very nice can you come back
in three weeks. I said, no, ma'am, I'm expecting our
first child. I didn't mention anything about the Ted Max show.
I should have maybe, but I said no, I'm expecting
our first child. So I've I've got to go home.
She said, oh, well, then that we'll put you on tonight.

(50:30):
So she put me on that night, and I had
to have a talent scout to represent me introduce me.
And I called our high school principal who had a
sister in a who lived on Long Island, and she
was on the show and introduced me like we were
old friends, and and said I sang around Nashville and
and then I sang I believe for every drop of

(50:51):
rain that falls. I mean, it was my favorite song,
which is I think not an accident. It was a
song of faith and I could sing it very well
into a big finish and I won that night the
Arthur Godfrey Show. There were three time, there were three
other two other part contestants, but I won, and so

(51:12):
I all I got for it was appearing on his
morning show the next four mornings Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
And then see you later, Pat, if you're ever back
in New York. Give us a call, and I flew
back to Denton, but stopped in Nashville. Nothing happened, nobody,
no cause, no invitations to do anything. And and I

(51:33):
and I, but I was canceled off the Ted Max
show because you can't win a professional show on Monday
and an amateur show Friday the following Saturday. So they
just scratched me off the show as if I had
never been on. And uh, and I blew it. I
blew that was a college scholarship which I would have won.

(51:55):
It would have helped me get through my schooling with
a baby on the way. But I blew it by
being over eager. I went on audition for Arthur Godfril
who knew I would get on that night? But I
did and one but that blew the Ted mcamateur our
winning in the scholarship. So I'm feeling really downcast and Nashville,

(52:18):
seeing my folks on the way back to Dentn' and
a phone rings guy named Randy Wood, who owns the
record company in Gallatin outside Nashville, said, have been listening.
You're a homeboy. You can sing, said, would you like
to make a record? I said, well, yes, sir, I would.
I made a couple, but you know, not much happened

(52:39):
with it. He said, well, wait, did he know you
from Nashville or he senior on Arthur Godfrey. Oh no,
from Nashville. He he knew he was in the record business.
He I'm sure he had heard my records on on
Republic Records, but they had not been hits. All he
knew was I could sing, but there's lots of singers around.
But when he heard me on the Arthur god For

(53:01):
Show and the Ted Mcamateur Hour and saw that I
was winning, he said, look, you're going back and have
your baby, and I'll look for a song I think
and be a hit and i'll call you. Yes, sir, Okay.
I went back. We had our baby, Cherry, our first child,
and it was eight months before he called. I mean
eight months. I thought he'd forgotten all about me. And

(53:22):
I was leading singing and acapella and leading singing in
a little country church out and and also preaching in
the little country church because I was going to be
a preacher in Sliddale, Texas. But when the phone call
came from Randy Wood, it would saying I've got a
song I think you could make a hit with, and

(53:43):
I'll send you the ticket you come to Chicago. And
we recorded a song called two Hearts, two Kisses Make
One Love. And I said, well, that sounds like a
Perry Como song, maybe the two Hearts two Kisses or
something like that. No, No, one hearts not enough, baby be.
He plays the original Charms record on the phone rhythm

(54:03):
and blues. It was called race music, and and I
hadn't sung anything like that, but listen, He's given me
a chance to make a record. So he flew me
to Chicago. I stayed in the hotel room all afternoon
and evening till that night when we recorded two Hearts,
two Kisses, and it instantly overnight became a million seller.

(54:29):
I say overnight that we learned the next day after
I recorded that song, covering R and B songs were
starting to happen. Other artists. Frank Sinatra recorded that same song.
DRIs Day recorded two Hearts, two Kisses. The the Castro
Sisters and the Lancers groups all recorded that same song.

(54:51):
So Randy would put me on planes for eighteen days.
I went to twenty cities in eighteen days at his expense,
went to radio stations, TV stations. It was starting to
do dance party shows, um to see the buyers, the
jukebox operators. I mean, it was an incredibly taxing eighteen days.

(55:14):
And I thought, boy, if this is the record business,
this is not for me. Calling home to see how
Shirley and our little baby were doing. And and uh,
I thought, this, if this is the record business, I mean,
this is not for me. But the record became a
million seller, and you know, it was a top ten
million seller. I went back to Denton. Now all of

(55:34):
a sudden, I'm a big cheese around campus, you know,
at North Texas State. I'm starting to go back to
my my TV shows I was doing on the w
B A P. But but now I was getting calls
to come perform. And Randy called me in March, not yeah,
March of that March was too harsh to kisses. Then

(55:58):
May of that same or he caused me to come
back to Chicago and record. Ain't that a shame? Past
Dominoes big number one R and B hit which became
a million seller, number one hit for me. And then
and then October of that same year, a million selling
hit with a song called Crazy Obama coma knocking knocking
at my front door, door door, and all of a sudden,

(56:21):
everything I was doing it was a million seller. I
had to move to New York eventually to New Jersey.
We were expecting our second child already, and I mean emminently,
because it had been just a little over a year.
And uh. And so we moved first to New York
and then to New Jersey, where the next two kids,

(56:46):
well one was born in New York and the other
two in New Jersey before we moved to California. But
the career, which I had not anticipated at all, just
took off. And for a record, I hold in the
record business, Bob, Is that for from fifty not from
fifty seven, I'm sorry, through fifty nine. I was never

(57:09):
off the singles chart in Billboard for two d and
twenty weeks consecutively. It's a record I hold. Elton John
came the closest with a hundred fifty seven weeks, but
I lived on the charts for over four years after that,
went back to school, graduating from Columba University with four kids.
But it all took off like crazy. All of this

(57:32):
and response to your question about Arthur Godfrey. So you know,
this is the fifties and the music business. Are you
making any money? Yes, because hey, I wasn't making any
money from records yet, because I was on the lowest

(57:57):
royalty level for several years. Randy was only given me
three percent per records. But instantly I was being asked
to be on everybody else's TV shows. And then I
was making my own performances, asked to come perform in
supper clubs and and and shows that people were putting on.

(58:20):
I was getting paid to perform. Yes, And uh, and
so I will let's see that was this was that
that was fifty nine into the sixties. Yes, I was
being paid to come do shows sometimes with other performers.
But but I was making money, and uh, you know,

(58:43):
I I'd have to think back as to how I
was until I started on TV on seven forgetting TV
for a second. Why do you think the hits dried up? Well,
they didn't. Well, I mean you had this string, yeah,
and then you were an artist. Then the Beatles came long. Yeah,
you're jumping ahead a few years because I lived on

(59:04):
the charts for four years, for two hundred twenty weeks. Uh,
And and I was I matched Elvis during that period,
uh in in fifties, seven, eight and nine, uh a
record for record. I had forty one chart records in
the in the fifties and UH sixteen chart records in

(59:25):
the sixties. Right up to the Beatles. I mean I was.
I just lived on the charts. Everything I recorded hit
the charts, and and I mean I did things like
record the first million selling Him album in the fifties,
right in the middle of rock and roll. It's sold
a million copies, over a million church songs that I've
been singing all my life, because I knew the kids

(59:47):
would buy anything at that point that I recorded, And
so I recorded a Him album, and sure enough it's
so well over a million copies, which you know, sort
of fulfilled part of my early ambition to be a
eat your preacher. I mean that really all along the
way my early ambitions were answered and in manifold ways.

(01:00:09):
But but I was now appearing in uh in school functions.
I would be asked to appear at the youth rallies
and things like this and and telethons, and you know,
wherever I went and whatever I did, I was always
trying to to set what I hoped was a good example. Well,
in fact, while I was in college, when I was

(01:00:30):
making my first movie in fifty seven, and I was
still making record after record, hit after hit, because I
recorded April Love and Bernadine and my movie songs in
fifty seven and I started my own television show. Okay, okay,
a little bit slower. Let's go back to those first hips.
History was written years later that these tracks were originally

(01:00:53):
black music, as you said, reached music, and you made
the white versions. They're blowback in that starting in the
lead sixties. What was it like living in that era?
And two, as a deeply religious man, how did you
feel about singing rock and roll? Well, I I called
myself Elvis, and I'm midwives at the birth of rock

(01:01:17):
and roll because there was no quote rock and roll.
That phrase in the mid fifties was you was a
race music phrase. And that's what they call R and
B was race music, all black performers and rock and roll.
This rock and roll all night long, baby, I mean,
it was not dancing. But when Bill Haley and the

(01:01:38):
Comments recorded Rock around the Clock, and I've just recently
learned that when I met Elvis that first, that first
night in uh in nineteen fifty six, in October fifty six, Yeah,
October fifty six, when he was unknown, and he was

(01:02:01):
the opening act on this sock cop and I was
the headliner because I was having hit records. I've had
three hit records, um already million sellers. And he was unknown,
but Bill Randall, the DJ, brought him up from Shreport
where he was known as a rockabilly appearing on the
Louisiana Hay Ride, and Bill wanted to see what he

(01:02:21):
was like. So anyway, that same night, I had forgotten
till till a few nights ago, because I left after
I did my part that night, lip sinking my three
records to the screams of the kids. Uh that. The
two acts that followed me were Bill Haley and the
Comments doing their new record of Rock around the Clock

(01:02:42):
and the Four Lads doing a song called Memory. Um,
this will have these moments to remember. We'll have these
moments to remember. But they were unknown. They were just
coming along right me, just becoming known that night. And
so that was in In in the fall October of

(01:03:04):
fifty seven. But by then I was I was making
money and I was recording these r and B songs. Now,
see what you have to know If you didn't live
through that time, and many of the critics who came
along later didn't, They didn't realize that race music R
and B had their own shows, their own artists, their

(01:03:26):
own radio stations, their own charts. It was a separate genre.
But gradually in the in the mid fifties, UH pop
record producers began to hear some of these hooky fun
songs recorded by some of these R and B artists
and do pop versions of them, and they were calling
it rock and roll. There was no rock and roll.

(01:03:48):
In fact, there was hardly a teen market until the
mid fifties because kids just they liked whatever their parents like,
what they've been exposed to. But now this music was
and long, and their parents weren't sure they liked it,
which made the kids like it more. And uh and
these songs that I recorded because I was acceptable to

(01:04:10):
the parents as a clean cut white guy from Nashville,
and I was singing uh eventually two D Fruity and
and uh long Tall Sally, and Ain't that a shame?
And and crazy little Mama come knocking knocking at my
front door door door, Well, I was somehow making it acceptable.

(01:04:33):
And the artists knew that because I've got tapes audio
tapes with Little Richard and Fats and some of the
performers who were being asked by black DJ's early in
their careers, how did you feel when Pat Boone did
your songs? Little Richard? I've got a tape of him
saying when he when I heard Pat Boone had done
my song too, d fruity, I was still washing dishes

(01:04:56):
in a bus station and making Georgia. I wasn't making
no money yet they would play and my record on
the radio, but I wasn't get me making no money.
But when bat Boone did my song, I threw the
towel down and I walked out of here because I
was gonna make some money now, I mean, that's a
little Richard. At the time, Fats Domino had written, Ain't
that a shame? And he had He sold a hundred

(01:05:17):
fifty thousand when he was number one R and B
in their charts and in that genre. But when I
recorded his song, my version, which was more rock, his
was more roll. His was you me boom boom, me
cry boom boom When you said bomp, mine was you
made bump, bump me cry. Mine was a rock sound.

(01:05:39):
His was a roll sound. We put them together and
it was rock and roll, but he said many times.
In fact, there was a time I went to see
him in Louisiana, New Orleans, at al Hurts Place where
he was performing. He didn't talk much, but he he
had me come. It was theater in the round kind
of thing, and he and his little band, Fats, was

(01:06:00):
at the piano. He asked me to come down and
sit with him on the piano bench, which I did.
He didn't talk much, as I say, said, you folks
see this ring and on his one of his stubby fingers,
he had this piano shaped diamond ring. This man bought
me this ring. With this song, you made both both
meet cry, and we sang Ain't That Ashamed? Together? And

(01:06:22):
he said many times he made more money because my
record of his song, which he wrote and published. Little
Richard didn't publish his own songs. He didn't know enough,
didn't know what a copyright was, but Fats and his
people did. I sold immediately a million and a half
of Ain't That a Shame, which was ten times more

(01:06:42):
than his record had sold, and that helped him cross over,
as they all acknowledged in very short order into into
the pop world that at that point they had no
entrance to and they weren't known even the DJ's. Most DJs,
they were just playing pop music Patty page A Combo,
Vic Domone, show Tunes, Tin Pan Alley. But now this

(01:07:05):
guy Pat Boone. In fact, Jesse Jackson said recently, when
I did a song of R and B classics with
the original performers, that's another story. But I was talking
to Santida Jackson on the Rainbow Coalition station and she
said to the about recording, Papa's got a brand new
bag with James Brown, And she says, uh, is that

(01:07:29):
who I think it is? On the phone. Yeah, put
him on and it was her dad, Jesse Jackson, and
he said, you know, I've never said this publicly before,
but he said, we we came to love Pat Boone
in in the Chicago partly because if his father and
are read fully the big country star who he used
to sing our hymns and our gospel songs piece in

(01:07:49):
the valley close to walk with the then Pat Boone
came along his son and Are and he was singing
our our rhythm and blues songs and not just singing
them and having big records, but bringing the original artists
on TV with him. And he says, you're making it
popular and acceptable to all this big white audience. And
he said, I I'm gonna say that I think Pat

(01:08:11):
Boone did more for race relations in the fifties than
any other singer. Now that's coming from Jesse Jackson. Let's
go back to the fifties. Seems like you met everybody.
What were they like? They were wonderful people. I mean,
that's see. I grew up, as I told you, in Nashville,

(01:08:32):
and I worked alongside with my dad's company in the summertimes.
I was a laborer and he had some other high
school kids, black kids also working for him. And together
we were we were pushing wheel bears for a cement,
we were pouring concrete, digging ditches, a total lumber with
our shirts off in the hot summertime. And and we

(01:08:55):
were friends. I mean we were buddies. Uh. And the
black guys, we were just laborers together, earning a dollar
quarter an hour. And and maybe some of them folks,
they might have had a car. We didn't. My dad
had to pick up truck. But uh, but so now,
when I started recording and I met Little Richard, and

(01:09:16):
I met Fats, and I met and then I had
them come on TV with me. They came on as
my fellow performers that they in fact, we had a
symbiotic relationship, of course, because their music was good for me.
I was good for their music and for their for
their careers because they did not they were not known

(01:09:37):
or accepted on pop radio until I, Elvis, and a
few others began to record their songs, and then DJ's
like Alan Freed at W I and S in New York.
He'd started asking his listeners which record do you want
to play? You want to play Fats original or Pat
Boone's cover record. In the beginning, they chose my record

(01:09:58):
of Ain't that a Shame? Over Fats Original? But after that,
after maybe a few months out, I mean, he and
the other DJs around the country were starting to play
the originals, which the kids liked, but they had to
be introduced to it first, and that always bothered me.
When I think Billy Joel when he accepted his uh

(01:10:21):
is it Billy Joel? Yeah? I think it was when
he accepted his entrance into the rock and Roll Hall
of Fame. And I never thought of Billy Joel as
rock and roll anyway. He was sophisticated pop and big band,
and sure some of his students had great beats, and
he did something that pure rock and roll, I guess,

(01:10:41):
But he says, you know, I became fans of this
music um back when it was and he's talked about
the original performers, back before Pat Boone and Frankie Avalon
or somebody did their versions. I liked the originals, but
I wanted to say, what so did I? Man? You know,
I recorded their songs back then before you did, and

(01:11:02):
helped them and their careers. But but it's really strange. Um.
I just was never accepted by the rock and roll
crowd and Yon Winner and those who select those who
should be in the rock and roll Hall of Fame.
Though I had many hits that were purely rock and
roll and rhythm and blues, but I also committed the

(01:11:26):
cardinal sins of recording gospel and pop movie themes and
big band swing and all kinds of other music, and
therefore I was disqualified in their mind as a rock
and roller. Well, certainly the rock and Roll Hall of
Famous is so Robin holl I agree with you. But
going back a chapter, what was Elvis like? Did you

(01:11:46):
know Jerry Lee? Did you know Carl Perkins? Yes, all
of them? Yeah. I In fact, you may know of
the Broadway show that was something what was it called
the Something for when uh, when we we had all
become very popular, we're very successful, when Sam Phillips brought

(01:12:08):
Jerry Lee, Elvis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash back in
a million dollar, million dollar quartet and in that I
think it was originally in the script. I don't know
if it wound up in the Broadway show because I
never got to see it, but I've got the tape
of it when Elvis they're they're all singing their songs
and reminiscing, and for two or three hours, Elvis says, hey,

(01:12:28):
you guys heard Boone's new record. And they said, no,
it is as good song man. But they sent it
to me into the writer, send it to me, and
Pat Boone at the same time. He got it first,
and he he's got a big hit with it called
Don't Forbid Me, And they said, what's it sound like?
And he starts strumming on his guitar and singing it
the way he'd done. He would have done it, and

(01:12:49):
I already had a million selling hit with it, and
I tell my audiences when if I tell him this story,
I said, I sure, I'm glad I got it first
because Elvis would have had a big hit with it.
But I at at first. But yeah, jaredy Lewis and
I were the first guests when when Dick Clark went
national with the American Bandstand. I knew Dick, but when

(01:13:12):
he was the the off camera announcer for Bob Horne
in Philadelphia, when Bob was hosting a show called Bandstand,
it wasn't American Bandstand, just called Bandstand Bob Horne. He
was an late middle aged guy, but the teams were
dancing and he was playing all the records and the
and many of us, like I I came in was

(01:13:34):
as a guest lip syncing my record on his bandstand show.
I did that for many. So the off camera announcer
was a guy named Dick Clark, and he would just
be the ones in nowaadies, and never here's Bob Horne
with Bandstand, Let's dance kids or whatever. So my promotion
guy with me, said, Dick is a local DJ. Why

(01:13:56):
don't you go talk to him a little bit because
he'll play your records. So I went back and talked
with Dick when he when neither of us was on camera,
and he appreciated the fact. And then I went to
him to his radio station and was on with him
while I was there in Philadelphia. So later when he
went national, because Bob Horne, this is news, I'm not
talking out of school. He was forced to leave the

(01:14:19):
show because of allegations of shenanigans with some of the
girl dancers, and so boom, he was out, and Dick
Clark took over the show, and then ABC brought it
to New York and on the first American band Stand.
His first guests were me and Jerry Lee Lewis, and
then Jerry Lee and I were on some other shows
together along the way, and I knew his cousins Jimmy

(01:14:43):
Swagger and there's another one Jimmy Swagger, oh and Mickey Gilly.
They were all cousins of his, and uh and and
he yet of course he was doing extremely well. We
had totally different lifestyles, but but but I eventually recorded
some of his songs too, but they were just we

(01:15:05):
were all just newcomers. We were up and comers. We
were all you know, I was it, which came as
a big surprise to me, But for all of us,
we're looking at shoving for our place in the sun
and in the spotlight. But by the time I was
on with Dick Clark, I was already doing my own
network show, which was sometimes number one in the ratings

(01:15:25):
of Pat Boon Chevy Show. Okay, let's stop for a second.
How did you get that show? What was the experience
of doing that show, the Pat Boon Chevy Show. Well, um,
it was simply because of the record success. I mean
I was having one hit record after another. Now, I
was still in school, in college because we moved Shirley
not to te Neck, New Jersey, and we had our

(01:15:48):
fourth child, third and third and fourth child children in
uh oh gosh in in New Jersey. I should know
Dr Leonard Brown. I remember his name, but I can't Hackensack.
I guess it was Hackensack Hospital. And I was in
school at Columbia University, on my way hopefully to get
a five bit of capital because I knew I had

(01:16:10):
a very high I q and I couldn't settle for
less than a so I would want to get if
I be at a Kappa Key, that would be my
goal in college, and then I would apply for a
teaching job. I'd be teaching English in some school somewhere.
I mean, I didn't expect for this record career to
keep going. I mean I'd already seen some other artists

(01:16:32):
who had had a hit record or two, and now
they were singing behind the bar somewhere that I would
have dinner, and I thought, well, that's not gonna be me.
I mean, this is gonna fizzle out. I'm gonna get
my college degree. I'm gonna graduate magna cum laude, which
I did and so um. But while all that was
still going on, my records caused twenty century Fox to

(01:16:56):
call and ask if I'd like to make a movie,
and what I come out and do a screen test. Okay,
at this point in time, you have the record, lad,
you're still with dot Yeah, do you have a manager
and agent? How do you get those? And how do
you find those? That was another piece of very good fortune.
I don't think it was coincidental. My manager was a
publisher New Publishing, a friend of Perry Como, but he

(01:17:18):
had become a manager sort of on the side two
artists who are who are who? Sang with Perry Como,
the Fontaine Sisters and a couple of others, And because
of that he met Randy Would because they were on
Dot records. So when Randy Wood knew I needed a manager,
he said to Jack Spina, why did you manage Pat?

(01:17:39):
So he managed the Hilltoppers, a quartet, He managed the
Fontaine Sisters, He managed uh Johnny Maddox, a ragtime piano player,
and now he managed Pat Boone. And he got me
with g a C. General Artist Corporation, which was the
biggest UH management talent management in the business. And a

(01:18:01):
guy named Tom Rockwell was the head of that company,
and he and his top echelon people took a very
big interest in me. I don't know why. I mean
there were other performers, but they saw things happening in
my life. I mean I was having hit record after
hit record. I was I had to hit television show

(01:18:21):
and so, and in fact, I think they helped me
get the television show. And now twenty century Fox wants
me to make movies. So I went to New York well,
what came first the movies of the TV show, the
TV So tell me how you got the TV show. Well,
it just it came about because ABC Network through g

(01:18:43):
a C. They just said, hey, the guy hosted radio
shows in Nashville. He was doing TV hosting shows in
Fort Worth while he was in college on w b
a P Television, The Country Music Show on Friday nights,
The Beauty Barn Dance, and these four most teen times
another talent show sponsored by Foremost Dairies, for which they

(01:19:06):
paid me the handsome sum of fifty dollars a week.
And uh, but I was getting a lot of professional experience.
So ABC said, well, the g A C. You know,
he should be on television like Perry Como and Eddie
Fisher they had fifteen minutes shows. I don't know if
you remember that. Some of these singers had fifteen minutes shows.

(01:19:27):
Perry went soon to Our on NBC, Eddie Fisher still
had his fifteen minutes show. And so they said, why
did you let Pat Boone do a half hour show?
Try it out? And so they did. They said, we'll
try it, and they promoted it. And while they were
promoting in ninety seven, I was in Hollywood making my
first movie because I got signed to do the TV

(01:19:50):
show but before it started. Uh and and I had
already left my own show because of another story I'll
tell you about when they wouldn't let me have Harry
Belafonti on. I quit doing the half hour show and
I was going to move to California, so I so
I went out and did a screen test. They liked

(01:20:11):
what they saw. They put me in a movie called Bernadine.
After that April Love. And now I'll go back to
New York and I'm still hosting my TV shows. I'm
still in college at Columbia University, and I graduated from
from Columbia Magna Cum Laudy. I was on the cover
of TV Guide because of my TV show and my

(01:20:33):
cap and gown. And you open it up and there's
the pictures of my wife, Shirley and four little girls
at twenty three. We were both twenty three. All of
this happened, Bob At while I'm not. I'm not I'm
not twenty four years old yet I'm twenty three. All
of this had happened, and I'm making movies and there

(01:20:54):
and their hit movies, and before a little bit before
Elvis did Love Me Tender. I think was just for movie.
I think it was and now and then eventually, pretty
quickly we wound up sharing. Uh. Well he was, we were,
we had dressing rooms at twenty century five. We were
making movies there at the same time. I think he

(01:21:14):
had a five year deal. I had a seven year
deal to make movies. And Bernadine was a big hit.
Johnny Mercer wrote the title tune and a lot of
the other songs, and April Love Paul Francis Webster, Sammy
Faine Academy Award winners writing my songs for April Love,
and on and on it went, and uh, and then

(01:21:35):
I did Friendly Persuasion, Dmitri Tiomkin, the Academy Award writer
doing the I got to do the theme song for
that movie. I mean, it was all It was a
flood of stuff happening, and I was somehow I got
to where I I could thrive, I mean really thrive
on five six hours sleep. I was very energetic because

(01:21:57):
it was pure excitement, I mean. And Shirley, with our
four little girls, was being the mother of all time,
taking kids, making sure we had had a family to
come home to, and four daughters, and I tell you
I've hardly ever slowed down since then. I'm still balancing
six or eight balls at one time or plate spinning.

(01:22:27):
Tell me to hear Harry Billa Fonte story. Well, I
was doing the half hour show, and of course having
all these artists on with me. It was unbelievable to me,
but I was in the middle of it. But I
was the youngest guy ever to have his own music
variety show. I mean I was twenty I think, or
barely twenty two, and in fifty seven when we went

(01:22:50):
on the air with me hosting the The Pat Boon
Chevy Show uh AT sponsored by chev Lay of course,
so instantly I was having big name guests Ella Fitzgerald,
Nat King, Cole Perry Como himself, Eddie Fisher, Um Tony Bennett,

(01:23:13):
Sammy Davis. I'd bring some of the rocket. I didn't
have much to do with except requesting some of the
other artists. But you know they were Gina Lolo, bridget Anna,
Maria Alberghetti, all these female stars and then boxers, heavyweight
boxers and people from other walks of life come on

(01:23:35):
my show and I'm We're doing sketches. People don't pay
a little. They don't know that. One of my apprentice
writers was a fellow that was doing stand up in
Greenwich Village named Woody Allen. He was he was an
apprentice writer on my show, hired by a guy who
went on to produce Mash Larry Gilbert. They were producing

(01:23:55):
the Pat Boon Show, The Chevy Show, half hour music show.
I mean, I was. I was living an incredible life.
And it was mainly because of general artists, the big
Talent Agency. They saw somebody they thought could handle these
things at such an early age, and it just happened,

(01:24:16):
and and I could. I rose to the occasion every time,
whether it was the movies, recording, television, and I'm still
trying to make straight a's at at Columbia University. So
now while I'm doing back to your question, having all
the black artists on my show, and they were, you know,
I had with Johnny Mathis my arm around him and

(01:24:38):
and we did a number where the choreographer we would
we were seeing closing a show with let there be
Peace on Earth, Let it Begin with Me. And the
stage was dark except for a bright light at the
back of the stage and a ladder lit in the
fourth ground and set and Johnny and I are going
to sing this song together, and somehow the courier are

(01:25:00):
or staged me a step or two above Johnny. I
didn't like that. I thought there was like maybe an
intention in it, and so I didn't say anything. I
knew the lighting would permit it. So when we did
the show live, I didn't get up on those stairs.
I just stood right there with Johnny and we sang
our portions together of letter V Peace on Earth. And

(01:25:22):
as we turned, and as it was scheduled and choreographed,
we turned said good night, folks, and we walked away
toward that bright light at the back of the stage.
Let the repeace on Earth. Let it begin with me.
And I draped my arm over Johnny's shoulder as we
as we walked like in silhouettes all the way to
the and that that was the end of the show.
And so I get a call from Harry Belafanti, who

(01:25:45):
was the the biggest entertainer in the world right then,
and of course I was a big fan, and he said,
you know, I've been watching your show. I like the
way you treat your guests. He said, would you like
me to come on and we can do some things together.
I said, what WHOA? And I said, sure, can can
in effect? Can my folks get in touch with your folks?

(01:26:06):
And and he said sure. I said, well, let's just
plan it. We'll do it. So I was absolutely out
of my mind with delight. You know, Harry Belafanti, I mean,
Ella Fitzgerald, come on, Nat King Cole, all the others
were so great, and I felt so honored, privileged to
sing with him. Now, Harry Belafanti is gonna come on,

(01:26:26):
and I go have a meeting. The production meeting dropped
the bomb on him that Harry Belafanti has called me.
It's the Chevy representatives, it's the the network ABC people
and the ad agency and they're looking at it with
stony faces when I tell them Harry Belafanti is gonna
come on this show. And they said, no, no, no,
we're gonna thank him. It's nice of him, but we

(01:26:48):
got to say, no, what are you talking about? They said,
you know, Chevy dealers in the South. This is late fifties,
now remember fifty said Chevy dealers are getting a lot
of flak because you're having so many, uh, black performers
on the shows. With you and singing with them and

(01:27:08):
so on, and we're Harry Belafanti is making a lot
of civil rights noise, and we just can't have him
on the show with you because that could be the
coup de gras for Chevrolet. And they were nodding their heads, yeah,
we we can't have Harry Belafanti, and I I was
so stunned. It took me a few minutes and I
and it went onto something else, and I came back

(01:27:31):
and said, guys, wait a minute, Wait a minute, Wait
a minute. It says it's the Pat Boone Chevy Show,
But if Pat Boone has to say no to Harry Belafante,
it's not the Bat Boon Show. So I'm gonna have
to ask you to get somebody else to take the
show for the rest of this season. And I'm not
gonna come back if I have to parts who I

(01:27:54):
have on my show according to that kind of stuff.
They said, are you gonna walk off your show? Because
I said, it's not just that I grew up. I
was born in Florida, I was I was raised in Nashville.
I'm a son of the South. I know all of
this stuff. I'm just not going to perpetuate it, and
UH and and so they calmed down and they said, well,

(01:28:14):
if you have Harry on, can you guarantee there will
be no subtle or any other kind of civil rights
statements made. I said, look, Harry Belafani and Pat Boone
singing together on my show is enough statement. I'm sure
he'll understand. I can even tell him that this that
it's causing trouble in the South. So they reluctantly agreed.

(01:28:38):
And I'd like to say it happened, but it was
about I only had about three or four shows left
in that season. It didn't work out for his schedule.
He was booked, we had other guests booked, and I
just dropped the show after that. Recently, I was with UH.
I was going in the gym at night and the
black guy came to get an escalade out in front

(01:28:59):
and I was seing it and a voice came from
the car pad. Is that Pat Boone? I said, yes,
Jamie Fox hopped out there of the escalate. He says,
wait a minute, we hadn't met. He says, I'm Jamie
Fox said I know, and he said, Uh, I got
to ask you something I've heard recently, and this was
what thirty five years later or something. I never talked

(01:29:21):
about it. How it got out, I don't know, But
he said, I heard that when you were doing your
show in the late fifties and Harry Belafanti I wanted
to come on your show and Chevrolet, your sponsor, wouldn't
let him come on. You walked off your own show.
And I said, yes, But how did you know that?
I've never talked about. He said, I found out. He says,

(01:29:43):
can I give you a hug? He says, he says,
to do that now was no big deal. But you
this was in the late I said, yeah, it's nineteen
to do that back then and walk off your own
show man. He said that took guts, and and for me,
it wasn't taking guts. It was, as I've said many times,

(01:30:06):
it was it was just not right for me to
say no to Harry Belafanti. I mean, what, what guy
in his right mind, and I'm thinking righteous mind could
could say make up some excuse to Harry Belafanti. I've
since told his daughter, Sherry, and she had to get

(01:30:26):
on the phone and talked to his wife. I haven't
talked to Harry about it because maybe to this day,
he's upset. I never called him back. I don't know
if he knows why I didn't, but except our people
did converse and he was booked and I never I
quit doing the show. Okay, you're a mega successful being

(01:30:48):
that successful, also going on the road, being in movies.
They are all these perks, both good and bad. You know,
as people say, well, I'm poor, I have to pay
for everything when I'm rich, or to pay for anything.
And there's drugs and there's women. What was your experience
in that? Will you? You know? How did you avoid
the pitfalls? What was your experience of the good things?

(01:31:10):
Very good question and of course very simple answer people.
Some people may consider it simplistic. But first of all,
I believe in God, and I had a moral compass
that I inherited when I was thirteen. Although I got
a good, very good examples from my mom and dad.
But when I became a believer in in the Lord

(01:31:35):
uh it, it had an effect on me as a
teenager growing up. I never learned to cuss, for one thing.
There have been times when I wished I had learned.
But on the tennis court, and people know this, whenever
I had need an expletive, I say, oh boon, and
I can make my own name sound like an expletive,

(01:31:56):
although it's actually people don't know this. Daniel Boone was
not I am descended direct descendant from Daniel Boone from
his son James, and and he was not educated except
self educated. And when he carved on a tree, which
is well known matter in history that somebody came across

(01:32:16):
a tree in the wilderness, d Boone killed a bar
and I think he put the date of it carved
it in the bark of this tree. D Boone was
spelled b o O N killed c I L D
A bear b A r so. But that at that time,
because he came his family came from Scotland and uh

(01:32:40):
and the Boone had no E on the end of it.
It was b o n And that's an Anglo Saxon
word for blessing. And I grew up knowing way back
that I've been given a high i Q and a
name that that said that spelled blessing. And I just
felt an urging, sort of almost a calling, an innate

(01:33:04):
thing that if I had an influence on kids, it
was going to be a good influence because I had
planned to be a teacher anyway, and I would have
been teaching kids to try to live moral lives, and
and so all of this was feeding into the decisions
I made. I never took drugs of any kind, never
smoke pot nothing. In fact, I'm proud to say my

(01:33:24):
four daughters growing up in Beverly Hills and all their
friends smoke pot. They told me that they never did either.
My four daughters never want not one of them ever
had a her own apartment either. She married at in
their early twenties. Debbie Boone had a huge career with
You Light Up My Life, but she lived at home.
And and I had told my my four daughters that

(01:33:48):
I can pay for your college educations to any Christian
that college that will admit you as long as you
can be home for dinner, because you're not going to
go away to some school at seventeen eighteen years old
where you there's no chaperones and have boy and girl
dorms and all that stuff. It's not gonna happen. So
I I was that protective as a father, and I

(01:34:10):
had that same attitude in my roles that I chose.
I turned down Marilyn Monroe for a film. I risked
suspension at twenty century Fox over movie roles that they
wanted me to do that I just felt I couldn't do.
And there was the time I didn't kiss Shirley Jones
in April Love because it wasn't in the script and

(01:34:30):
I hadn't had time, hadn't taken time to ask my
wife Shirley if it was gonna matter that I was
doing kissing scenes, and she was ahead of me. She well,
I turned down the kissing scene with Shirley Jones in
the movie April Love that first time, and uh, and
I would have done it later because Shirley gave my

(01:34:51):
Shirley gave me permission. She said, look, I'm ahead of
you if you're going to do movies. She was familiar
with the entertainment business. Her her dad read fully, and
she said, you're gonna do kissing scenes, Just make me
one promise. I said anything. She said, you won't enjoy it,
and so I promised her I wouldn't enjoy it. I
came back to the studio ready to kiss Shirley Jones

(01:35:12):
later in the film, but it hit the trade papers. Bob,
I'm telling you it was in Hollywood Reporter, Daily Variety.
It went around the world on the associated up all
the press services. You can look it up. A star
refuses to kiss leading lady and they assumed it was
for religious reasons, but it wasn't. It was just I

(01:35:34):
wanted to stay married and I wanted to know ahead
of time is this going to be a problem. And
Shirley gave me her permission. So I did love scenes
with Debbie Reynolds and Barbara Eden and Diane Baker and
and Margaret and and others, and of course I didn't
enjoy it. Okay, there are a couple of you know,

(01:35:55):
being that famous, you get experiences the average person doesn't have.
Tell me you're one or two best experiences as a
result of your need, whether it be meeting ahead of
state or going somewhere. You know what couple of the
perks of fame, well, you know, usually the people that

(01:36:16):
I met. You know, I I had been around enough
and I was intelligent enough, you know, to to try
to be on best behavior. My worst, my worst experience,
most embarrassing moment of my life was with Queen Elizabeth.
So we'll go right to the top. I mean I
did to Royal command performances. You know, the whoever manages

(01:36:39):
those things has whatever the royal family wants to come
in at the generally the Palladium theater in the Royal
Box there the Royal family up there. And I was
still in college when I did my first command performance.
Imagine that. I mean, I'm I'm making movies, television recordings,
having hits since success and babies right and left, four

(01:37:02):
and four years and I go to London and I
perform in the in the Palladium and singing my rock
and roll songs. Well, um, I was schooled ahead of
time that you know what you do, you get in
this line. And the poor Queen and the royal family
have to run this gauntlet with performers and make nice

(01:37:26):
with people, some of which they may don't care about,
but they have to be nice to everybody. And and
the women have to curtsy and bow, and the guys
have to stand straight by by your head, say your
majesty and extend your don't extend your hand unless she
extends hers. I don't remember whether she and Princess Margaret

(01:37:47):
and the others. I think Princess Margaret extended her hand
that first time because she was a fan already Princess
Margaret so and I was singing rock and roll songs
that were big hits in England and uh and so that.
But that was in fifty seven, now, several years go by.
I you know, it was all right, it went well,
and I was, you know, I could brag about having

(01:38:09):
it had a royal command performance when I go back,
and I think it was it was at a royal
command performance having to do with a movie. I think
it was West Side Story or something. So I came
back and I'm an old hand now I know what
to do, and I was sort of smugly, uh, you know,
laughing up my sleeve at Peter Seller's Claudia, Cardinal Peter Finch.

(01:38:32):
Some of these big big stars, they're also nervous. I mean,
who who's not nervous when you're gonna meet and you know,
either shake hands or be greeted by the Queen of
England and the royal family, Prince Philip and everybody. I'd
done it before, so I knew what to do and
I was not nervous until she comes in far at
the other end and I'm towards the end of the line,

(01:38:55):
and I see how nervous. Everybody else is, and and
I starting to repeating to use okay, by your head, don't,
don't re extend your hand, say your majesty. If she
extends her hand, you take it. If not, just let
answer whatever she says. And that's it. And so Peter
Seller's Claudie Carlinal Peter's bench over here waiting, and suddenly

(01:39:19):
she's standing in front of me, and I bowed. I said,
your majesty, and she said we met before? Who I said?
We did? My we did. I didn't mean to say that.
I meant to say you remember that, but it came
out we did we met before? How can you say

(01:39:42):
that to the Queen of England? When was that queeney?
Was it a seven eleven store somewhere? And where where
did we meet? I'm and and she laughed and and
there's a picture of me and a one of the
London papers with a look of shock on my face
and a big smile on her face. And she extended
her and she said it was the royal performance several

(01:40:03):
years ago. She was very sweet, like, oh, if you
don't remember, it's okay. How can I say I don't?
But my response to her was when she said we
met before we did. So, I mean, you can't top
that for embarrassment. Um, I mean I I at the moment,

(01:40:26):
I can't. I know that Dick Clark and I, Uh,
everybody told us that we looked alike sometimes. Uh. In fact,
sometimes he was mistaken for Pat Boone and I was
mistaken for Dick Clark. And so we we pulled alongside
each each other and our cars on Sunset Boulevard one time,
roll the windows down, and I said, anybody ever tell

(01:40:47):
you you look like Pat Boone? And they said, ye,
anybody will tell you look like Dick Clark. And and
I have a picture I'm looking at it right now
in my office of Dick and me together. And he
had it on his um office wall. And when he passed,
his wife knew I would like to have that picture,
and and she sent it over to me. And I'm

(01:41:07):
looking at him with this look on my face, like,
you know, we really do look alike. But but but
we we were not embarrassed by any of that. Maybe
he was embarrassed sometimes if they thought he was Pat Boone.
I was never embarrassed if they thought I was Dick Clark.
But but no, I can't think of Well, let's let's

(01:41:33):
go back. You're talking about England. So you're having this
career hit after hit, you have a TV show, you
have movies. What goes through your mind when the Beatles
hit and what was that experience? Like? Well, I first
heard them when I was in England performing and their
first record had come out. If there's anything that you want,

(01:41:54):
which I'm hearing on a commercial right now, So the Beatles,
or who have Michael Jackson, whoever owns their catalog, is
letting them use the Beatles songs. But I heard that
record and I said that's a hit, and I brought
it back to to l A and trying to get
Randy would have Dot Records to let me record it,

(01:42:14):
but he said no, it's already been out on another
label called VJ and it was not a hit, so
he said no, it's I don't think it's a hit record,
and he wouldn't let me record it. So of course
it did go on to become a big hit and
uh and the Beatles, they they came on so strong
that at one point, like five of the top ten

(01:42:37):
songs were all Beatles songs. And Tom Jones and I
and all the others making records had to scramble for
our whatever was left. And I was making a lot
of money in my record royalties and and and still
selling lots of records at that time in the sixties.
And so uh, I got a painter who was uh

(01:43:00):
who was very skilled. He had he painted a oil
painting of me from a picture in a magazine. But
he was great at skin tones, and not my skin.
I had a need for that, But I mean he
he made me look really nice in this painting. So
I sent him a picture surely my wife and asked
him to do that, and he did. And then I

(01:43:21):
sent him pictures of my four girls and he painted
them and and and I have him framed in our
place in Hawaii right now. And so he he in
contacted me said he was coming to the States. He
was from Indonesia, and he said, Uh, I need there's
a group called Church World Group that will bring me over,

(01:43:44):
but I need to have a sponsor. Would you be
willing to be my sponsor? Well, I didn't know what
that meant, just would you vouch for me? I said, okay, sure,
I'll be your sponsor. And I thought he had maybe
some connections I didn't know. And the next thing I know,
we've moved to CALIFORNI on you and I get this
notice from the Church World Service. We are we're sending

(01:44:05):
a young man named Leo Jansen. He'll be arriving in
New York such and such a date on a ship.
Where do you plan for him to live? And what
do you expect? Where do you expect for him to do?
That's what they meant by my being a sponsor. And
he's already on the ship coming over, and so I

(01:44:25):
had a representative of mine meet him at the ship
flying to California. He's about five ft tall, a little swarthy,
dark Indonesian who who could paint incredibly, And I got
him a job as a stock boy at DOT Records.
He had to help. He had to shove these huge,

(01:44:46):
heavy boxes full of records around on a cart. It
could have killed him. In fact, who knows. It may
have contributed to an early death, which he did experience,
but it was not from that and he was he was.
I had him paint other stars like um uh Oh,
Richard Chamberlain and Connie Francis, Connie Stevens, ma Harris uh

(01:45:12):
what's Ma Harris's first name anyway, actors, And just like me,
he would paint them and I would have him send
the pictures to them, and they'd pay him five or
six dollars for these portraits of them taken from pictures
and magazines, I mean, because they were that good. Next
thing I knew, I saw he was painting nudes and

(01:45:33):
his paintings were being displayed in the big painting stores
framed uh, and he would he would he didn't have
new models, but he would just buy magazines and he
would drape a towel or uh, some kind of clothing
over an otherwise nude model. And and and because his

(01:45:53):
skin tones were, as I say, so great, the Aaron
Brothers and other stores that sell all kinds of paintings
that would display them in the windows. And he was
beginning to make serious money. So I had him come
over for dinner and I said, you know, uh, Leo,
I'm glad you're making money, but you know this, I
don't think should be what you're remembered for. I have

(01:46:16):
an idea I want I'm gonna get some pictures, some
paintings of Jesus, and I want you to to paint
a beautiful, lifelike portrait of Jesus. And I believe this
could be the thing you'll be remembered for the rest
of your life, because there's millions of people that would
like to have your heart work, your artwork and heart

(01:46:37):
work for that matter. And I knew he could do it,
and he was. He was soon to do that. He
was planning to do that. He brought his mother over
from Holland, from the Netherlands and or did I say
Indonesia was the Netherlands, begin in the Indonesian component, because
they were in control of the Indonesia at that point.

(01:46:58):
And so he had he had a heart attack and
passed very early, and he never got that painting of
Jesus done. I've always regretted that because I can imagine
what it was going to be like, because the beautiful
paintings of him anyway, but none that could do what
Leo Jansen could have done by bringing him to life

(01:47:21):
as as his artistry would have done and a painting,
but that didn't happen. But what the world brought that up?
The Beatles? Oh, the Beatles, Oh yes, because that occasion
my meeting with the Beatles, because when they performed UH
the first tour UH and they were to Thomas mcreena

(01:47:43):
in Las Vegas. I had created pictures of the Beatles,
had a painter do the beautiful UH separate um solo
port uh pictures and then a group portrait as well,
and got sears. I got to go to Briant. I
had to go to Brian Epstein to get the contract,

(01:48:04):
which I did, and he he loved the pictures once
he saw them solo portraits. What I was trying to say,
They and the and the Beatles themselves loved the portraits
and and he so I got the contract to sell
them and UH and so we got sears to sell
them by the by the hundreds and thous is probably millions.
And they all had tags, numbered tags, and and the

(01:48:27):
buyers would put their name in address and we had
a huge raffle when they and we we brought thirty
people to the first concert, the afternoon concert at the
Thomas mac Areena. And I got a picture in my
office of my wife Shirley and our kids on the
front row at that at that concert of the Beatles

(01:48:48):
on their first tour. And then we went back after
that show and spent some time after the show with
the boys and who were just coming along at that point,
but already you know, creating havoc. And I remember my
daughter Laurie sat on ringoes lap. Debbie was talking to
to George Lyndy two. Who am I leaving out? Oh,

(01:49:14):
John Lennon, And then I was talking to Paul, and
Paul was saying, you know, we liked these portraits very much.
They flatter us. We like them, said, Brian's got our
their Epstein's got us on a lot of crap which
were embarrassed by an avenge. So we had a great
meeting back there. That's the only time I was ever
with the boys themselves. But but the pictures wound up.

(01:49:36):
I was in doing some shows myself in England, eventually concerts,
and I was in Liverpool and I went to the
Cavern and those pictures that we had I had done
are hanging at the cavern, uh where you know, honoring
where the guys first made their breakout moves as a group.
And so I would like to say that I ma

(01:50:00):
relationship had continued with any of them, including Paul, especially Paul,
because I felt like he and I were the most
alike of of those guys because he had he developed
a wonderful marriage. Of course his first wife died, but uh,
he had other marriages and kids, and I thought he

(01:50:20):
was a great father. And and I don't know about
George and his family or Ringo Um and John. Of
course he had Yoko, but I I did have and
I recorded some of their songs my my records if
I want to hold your hand, and and yesterday, and
some of the songs that they wrote and did were
so wonderful. And I had that kind of relationship with him.

(01:50:44):
But the one personal relationship was when we were both
really still in the early days of our careers. Did
Leo paint the pictures? Yes, Leo Jansen. Okay, just let
to make sure. Okay, Now you mentioned earlier that you're
juggling six or seven balls to this day. So how
you know you keep reinforcing that you really plan to

(01:51:06):
do this for a temporary period of time, then become
a teacher. Preacher, How have you sustained decade after decade,
another sixty years. How have you managed to do that?
That's good, that's another very very good question. And you know,
I would never have dreamed it would happen but I

(01:51:27):
think the logical answers are versatility diversity not the necessarily
same thing. Because I have recorded more songs, I never
quit recording, and I always had some kind of access
even if if I had to start the company, which
I did, Land and Lion Records and Pat Boone's Gold
Label for other artists as well as myself, because the

(01:51:51):
time came when many of us artists were dropped by
the labels that we helped build, and and so I
and I anger and opportunism to to impetus I UM
I created the Gold Label for artists who had sold
millions of records, who were still active and singing, and

(01:52:13):
we're not on any label and uh, and I got
a partner who who who could be the administrator? And
in the first two two years of that label Gold Label,
we signed famous artists including Glenn Campbell, Roger williams, um Gosh,

(01:52:35):
the Four Freshmen, and and uh, the High Lows and
and and I'm forgetting a lot of them we had.
We had so many of them on our label. They
had sold millions of records and we're still performing, but
we we had had a hit a financial bump in
the road. The guy that was putting up the money,
lost all his money, and it fell on my shoulders

(01:52:59):
to foot at the bill and keep it going, which
I did for a while. But I brought in people
who who have been recommended it's knowing how to run
record companies, and they didn't. They just they just took
my money and they didn't get anything done. And and
and then at the worst possible time, we had a
wonderful relationship with a company called Valley Media. They they

(01:53:23):
were the biggest inventories uh company in the nation. They
had huh Barney who ran it. Oh really yeah, yeah,
they were in northern California. They were a big distributor,
Valley Distributors, and you know that it went public and
we had a great relationship with them because they we

(01:53:44):
paid for the records, but they would pay for the
marketing and distribution, and they were good at it and
and also the inventor and all of that. They would
act like a record label and let me be the
record label and they would work with me. But about
a year after they went public, they went bankrupt and

(01:54:04):
and so they all of my masters, all of my
stuff was stuck in there bankruptcy proceedings, and I had
to let all the contracts and the artists that that
I had gotten recorded, Glenn Campbell, and and and Jack
Jones and all of the artists, Patti Page. I had
to let them all go because I couldn't follow through

(01:54:26):
at my own just on my own expense. What we had.
Our deal was we would put up fifty thousand per album,
and if you do your job and the arrangers do
their job, you can make a wonderful album, even with
an orchestra fifty thousand if you come to the studio
knowing what you're gonna do, not doing like so many
of the rock artists and so many others did and do. Still.

(01:54:47):
They booked the studio for a month, and they bring
their musicians together and they start fiddling around, Now what
do we do? And they write songs while they're running
up those huge bills three or four hundred thousand, And
we weren't gonna do that. And I said, if you
want to spend more than fifty, you can pay more.
And a couple of the artists, did you know, they
spent more than our fifty. But we made some very

(01:55:10):
good records that I'm really proud of, and they could
use in their personal appearances. That was part of the
part of the deal and what part of the reason
they wanted to do it. But uh, but we hit
the financial snags and and the Pat Boon Gold label
still exists. We've we've We've got a few artists still
hanging and well it's because they don't have anywhere else

(01:55:30):
to go, and we still sell their records. But I'm
hoping that the other things I'm doing now on my
own are gonna add some luster to the Gold label
and people will be will have the the influence to
come to the Pat Boon Gold label, to bat Boon's

(01:55:51):
bat boon dot Com and others and find out about
records by artists that they did love and maybe didn't
know that they recorded for my label. Path This has
been wonderful. We could go on for another couple of
hours just to hear your story is so informative. I
want to thank you for showing up and doing this today. Well,
let me just tell you a couple of things quickly, man,

(01:56:13):
because you mentioned the and I mentioned the balls in
the air, I'm about have already made the first episode
and I'm already launching my own podcast, which will be
happening just in a matter of weeks, and it's gonna
include We've got so much content that is. I think
it's going to be a very entertaining podcast because I
can play my own records, the records of the artists

(01:56:35):
that I will feature, like that first, that first meeting
with Elvis when he was my opening act. No other
artists can make that statement. And and uh, and and
our relationship that pursued after that, when we visited in
each other's homes, not just in each the studios. He'd
come over on a Sunday afternoon and and my girls

(01:56:58):
being the pool and they jump up and run to
see him, and he that's a girl. Stop it, you're
getting him all what? Leave me alone? Man? I like it.
We didn't know he had Priscilla stashed back at Graceland
at that time. So anyway, they are all these stories
to tell and pictures to show and movie clips and

(01:57:19):
TV clips. So that podcast and now I'm on Spotify.
Spotify they tell me I've got about six hundred thousand
listeners a month now coming to to hear just the
original first eighteen or twenty songs that were big hits.
And uh, I mean I had forty that were chart records,

(01:57:39):
but but sixty that were chart records, but but forty
one just in fifty five, So they can hear those
songs on Spotify. But I've recorded two hundred songs and
more than Frank Sinatra or being and I'm still recording,
and so we're going to see if we get all
those on Spotify. They're open to the idea and so

(01:58:02):
that people will hear album songs that I recorded, movie
themes the Great American Songbook that unless they bought one
of my albums, they don't know that I recorded the
same kind of songs as Frank and Byng and the
others that I idolized. Um. And we've got other things
happening um that are going to be noteworthy. And I've

(01:58:26):
just recorded one song with Crystal Gayle hit record of
hers that was twenty years ago with Eddie Rabbit, and
the record company thought it'd be cool for me to
do that song again with her, and she's still lovely
and sings great. And we do a new version of
Just You and I and we dedicated it to my wife, Shirley,

(01:58:47):
And when we do our video together at the end
as a picture of Shirley, that she that Gail and
I were both singing really in honor of my wife Shirley.
So there's there's things like this that are happening that
people will learn about, and I hope they'll be interested.
And of course I've written a book, my last book,
and I've recorded my last album called Legacy, which is

(01:59:10):
all songs. I wrote all the words and music for.
I made every song in it. I I wrote the
tunes and the words except one song. I have some
help from a couple of composers that have never objected,
rock mon and Off and Pac Pagnini variations on a
theme by by rock mon and Off bah blah blah

(01:59:31):
blah blah blah blah blah blah, ma bah bah blah blah,
bah bah blah blah blah blah, the beautiful, beautiful melody.
And I wrote words for that, and and we'll list
them as the writers of the melody. But but I
wrote the words. Send them the royalties. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway,
it's a busy life. A book yet to come out,

(01:59:53):
a movie I just did, call Mulligan. I have a
lead role in it. It's about golf. Meant, millions of
people play god. But there's not many movies about golf.
The Mulligan is the second chance to do over. And
I play a respected older golfer who's mentoring a young
guy who's having mental and marital problems, is ruining his

(02:00:14):
golf and business problems, and uh, and I to try
to help him, you know, I create a spiritual basis
for him to get his life in order, which will
also help his golf. And it's going to be a
big film. I think I can guarantee because of what
I just said millions of golfers is going to come
out the week after the Masters next April. Good timing.

(02:00:39):
And it's about golf. It's a whole golf story. And
I'm wearing Payne Stewart Nickers throughout. I'm a very colorful
character in the film. And uh, I think, I mean,
they tell me I did a good job in it.
And I've got a couple of other films that I've
done lead rose in that are not out yet. So
I'm busy. I'm telling you, I'm just continually still writing,

(02:01:02):
still singing. I'm not making live performances because of COVID.
But I had to cancel my last what might have
been my last performance in the Dick Clark Theater in Branson,
where I had a lot of success playing Will Rogers
and and and Justice in my own shows, but that
had to be canceled, maybe forever. So I don't know

(02:01:23):
if I'll do any more live performances, but if I do,
I sing some every week to make sure that I
can still do it. And I mean, I'm in my
eighth year, but I'm listen. You're an inspiration. Shall we
all live that long? Never mind be that productive? And
I still swim in my heated pool, I still work

(02:01:43):
out in the gym, still play tennis and golf and
and and and hold my own I mean, I I'm
very fortunate, always have been. But the name Boone means blessing,
and I've just tried to live up to it. Thank
you so much, Pat, It's been great. Thank you, Bob.

(02:02:03):
Till next time. This is Bob left Sex

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