Rayburn Anthony and Mike Mettalia & Midnight Shift w/ Jeff Vitolo & Quarter Mile Rebels

Sun Record’s Rayburn Anthony with Mike Mettalia & the Midnight Shift (ROCKABILLY) Rayburn was born and raised in Humboldt, Tennessee which is just outside Jackson. His birthday is 23rd May 1937. One of eight children, he picked up his guitar playing from his elder brother Bob who played in a local band. WS Holland who lived in Jackson and who played drums on Carl Perkin’s “Blue Suede Shoes” and all his other Sun and early Columbia recordings was taking a break from the road and working with another local singer Carl Mann. WS saw Rayburn in the local clubs and took him along to Sun Records where he sat down at a keyboard and sang a few songs for Sam. Rayburn thought it was just to let Sam hear his voice and that they would later set up with the full band, but Sam signed him off that solo audition. Rayburn never cut all out rockabilly at Sun, as by the end of 1959, the commercial music world was changing but his “Hambone” featuring, as did all his Sun cuts, Eddie Bush on guitar, is a much underrated cut. His “There’s No Tomorrow” is a minor classic too. He put out three singles on Sun all released on Bear Family and Sam Phillips actually called in an outside producer Vinnie Trout to get Rayburn a commercial sound. His three singles on Sun were “St. Louis Blues”, “there’s No Tomorrow” and “Big Dream.” Rayburn tells a story of how one day he was having trouble getting the feel of a particular ballad and Sam told him to imagine singing it to a beautiful blond. Still having trouble, Sam called time out and some time later, came back with a blond who he sat beside Rayburn who says, “It just made me more nervous.” He also remembers meeting Elvis when he would drop by the Sun studio to say hi. He also met Scotty Moore in Memphis and this would prove invaluable when he made his next career move. Rayburn now set about his own recording career and certainly had his ups and downs. His song writing successes, however, helped him get his break.

w/ Jeff Vitolo & the Quarter Mile Rebels (ROCKABILLY)

8PM $10/13