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Transcript of KTRU interview with Houston musician Leon "Pappy" Selph.
Originally broadcast February 1997.
(KTRU) Do you ever miss the symphony?
(Pappy) No, I haven't missed the symphony. I've had so much fun playing country that I just never did want to go back to symphony. I still play a few. I still play symphonies. I got my band rehearsed on about four symphonies that we play. And, it's good too. I got 'em rehearsed, you know. We play one that's real good called "Tale of the Vienna Woods." I got the band rehearsed on it and we play it. Boy, they dance it too.
(KTRU) What was the music that your parents played? You said your mother played an accordian.
(Pappy) Yeah, they played a lot of, well, of course my mother was German and my father was Irish. I'm half Irish and half German. Now the German gives me an appetite for the beer. The Irish gives me the heart to drink it. Oh, I don't drink, but uh....
So, anyway, things rocked on and then 1941 came. I was on the network, on twenty-seven stations (on) NBC. I come back to Houston in 1934 and I formed what's called the Blue Ridge Playboys. And, we began to book and to tour, you know, and so forth, and here we are yet, the Blue Ridge Playboys.
And so, here come Columbia Records wantin' us to make phonograph records, and then we made phonograph records and we really went to tourin', you know, and so forth.
And then come 1941. Pow. I lost my whole group to the United States Service, you know. Everybody had to go. And, me too.
And so, when I come back from the United States Navy in 1945, I said, "Well, what will I do?" So, they offered me a job in the (Houston) Fire Department.
I said, "Oh."
My friends, you know, said, "You can come to work with us."
So, I called Roy Acuff. I said, "Roy, you've been wantin' me to play for you for years and years and years." I said, "I'm ready to come and play."
"Oh Pappy," he says, "It's the best news I've had.... Let me tell everybody." He says, "By the way," he says, "we're going to sign the contracts in September."
You signed thirteen week contracts. In the entertainment business you signed thirteen week contracts. So, he says, "We're gonna sign the contracts in September." And he said that..., this was July. He said, "Now you be here September First to sign the contract."
I said, "Okay."
So, I went to work for the Fire Department, because me and Dugan Butler..., he (was) an old trombone player, you know, and we were playin' dominoes up there (in the Fire Station), so I said, "Well, I might as well get paid for it."
But, I wasn't hurtin'. I had money. I had been makin' a hundred and eighty-seven fifty a week on that big radio show, you know. So, I come on, but you know, I'm messin' around, foolin' around. And, I thought, "Well, I'll be up there (in Nashville), so?"
On the third week I (was) workin' at the Fire Department I saved a life. And, I said, "Boy, that's good, you know." It give me a good feelin'.
So, when it come First of September I called Roy. I said, "Roy," I said, "I'm on to a real good thing."
I begin to like them red lights and sirens. I says, "Roy," I says, "I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to come in December instead of September."
"My God, man," he said, "I done told everybody you was comin'."
I said, "Well, I am comin', but it's gonna just be in December."
"Well, okay." That was another thirteen week contract date, you know.
I never did make it to (Nashville), with Roy. I stayed in the Fire Department 30 years. So, I retired in 1972, from the Fire Department.
I said, "Well, what will I do?" I said, "I think I'll go back in the music business."
So, I still have some friends in high places. And, so I called one of my friends in the State Department. I said, "What do you all got goin' on up there?"
"No," he said, "Pappy, we ain't doin' nothin'.
I said, "Well, I'd like to take a trip somewhere. Got any place you can send me?"
"Well," he said, "how would you like to go to Russia?"
I said, "What? Russia?"
He said, "Yeah."
I said, "What would they know about country music in Russia?"
He said, "That's what we'd like to find out." He said, "Will you go?"
I said, "Yeah, I'll go." So, we took off to Russia. We landed..., we refueled at Amsterdam, then flew on to Czechoslovakia, landed in Czechoslovakia and stayed all night. So..., that next morning we was gonna have breakfast. So, I had an accordian player that spoke Czech. He just spoke Czech perfect, you know. Them Czechs over there couldn't believe he was an American. They thought, "Are you a Czech?"
So, anyway, we went down to get breakfast. So, I said, "Well, order some coffee." So he ordered us some coffee. Now remember, the Iron Curtain is down hard and it's bad there. People look at you with hungry eyes. You could just feel the oppression, you know. And so, I said, "We ought to order some coffee. It was parched barley boiled in water, you know, and that's what they called coffee. Pitiful, pitiful stuff."
And so, I said, "Well, it ain't no good." I said, "Why don't you just tell that waiter to bring us a breakfast like he's bringing everybody else."
So, he brought us two foot-long, looked like, hot dogs at the circus, you know, sausages... like you get a foot-long hot dog at the circus, you know. (He) brought two of them, some hard wheat rolls, some butter, some jelly, and two pints of beer.
Well, after breakfast, you don't give a damn what's goin' on.
Well, we stayed there.
The last thing I did... We played fifteen concerts throughout the country (Russia). We played there two weeks. We played fifteen concerts thoughout the whole country, you know.
The last thing we did was about forty miles out of Moscow in what they call the (?-name unclear) Mountains. They had a Sunday afternoon festival and we was supposed to play at Four o' clock, so Four o' clock came and we got on the bandstand. There was a little bandstand there down in the valley and right there where they had the 1968 Ski Olympics on that big mountain there, and this big mountain there was full of people. And, we was on this little bandstand down there in the little valley and we played an hour.
I played "You Are My Sunshine", most everthing I could think of, you know, that they might know, you know. But, the last thing I did was "Out on the Texas Plains". I said, well, we've got time for one more, so let's do "Out on the Texas Plains" and I'll do a high yodel on the end, you know.
"Well okay." So, we played "Out on the Texas Plains" and I did a high yodel on the end, real high.
And they said, "Boy, I have just done it."
The people over there have been yodelling with each other across them Alps all these years, you know, and everything, boy, and I hit that high yodel, 186,000 paid admissions on that hill jumped up and shouted. They hadn't been doin' nothin', you know, except applaudin' together, everybody in unison, everybody applaudin' together in unison like that.
Boy, they jumped up and they started yelling.
I asked the Bohemian, I said "What are they sayin'?"
He said, "Pappy, I don't know." He said, "They're Russian and they're sayin' something in Russian, but it sounds like they're tryin' to say 'play it again'."
I said, "My God, man, let's play it again." And we played it again. And they jumped up and shouted, give us a standing ovation -- 186,000 paid admissions. I asked the man when we got down. I said, "How many admissions do we have?"
He said, "186,000, but," he said " a lot of people have slipped in." They've went down the creek this way or that-a-way and come up over behind the mountain, you know.
(KTRU) Were you suprised recently to find out your records are played in England?
/Stay tuned, more to come.
[we have several minutes still to transcribe]
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