Tommy Spurlin – There Might`ve Been A Love Song (1956)

Perfect 108 1956. www.Rockabilly.nl Born Thomas M. Spurlin, 12 January 1928, Elba, Alabama Died 27 July 2005, Gulfport, Mississippi Tommy Spurlin’s “Hang Loose” (1956) became hugely popular during the British rockabilly revival of the late 1970s, when it was reissued in the UK on the specialist RM label. Spurlin had a half-brother called George ‘Benny’ Dumas, who was born to a different father in Allan, Alabama in 1931. They spent their early childhood in Jackson, Alabama before moving to Glenmora, Louisiana in their early teens. Spurlin’s grandfather retired to Miami in 1948 and the remainig members of the family followed suit a year later. By this time Dumas and Spurlin had started making music together. In 1952 they formed a semi-pro hillbilly band, Tommy Spurlin & the Southern Boys, comprising Spurlin on vocals and rhythm guitar, Dumas on bass, Virgil Powell on violin, Jimmy Slade on lead guitar and Bill Johnson on steel. In 1954 they made their first record, “Been Livin’ Wrong”/”My Address Is the Same”, released on Jiffy 205. Jiffy Records was a tiny label based in West Monroe, Louisiana, near Shreveport, where the band had picked up some work. In the summer of 1955 they signed with Perfect Records, owned by Harold Doane in Miami, Florida. Doane, who had previously been involved in the motion picture industry, was using quite sophisticated recording techniques for the time and appears to have been one of the earliest studios to use tape rather than acetate discs as a …
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