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• 1964
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1964, the first year that Reggie kept records of the sessions he played on, saw him moving around quite a bit. In January, Rick Hall invited him down to his newly opened FAME studio in Muscle Shoals to augment what has become known as his 'first rhythm section' comprised of David Briggs, Jerry Carrigan, Norbert Putnam, Spooner Oldham, Earl Montgomery and Terry Thompson. Thompson, he said, had come to Memphis often in the late fifties, and he and Reggie would sit in at various clubs around town. He first met Rick Hall when he and his band, The Fairlanes, cut a record with Bill Black's Combo at Royal Studio in 1959 (see our Early Recordings page). As out-of-town producers like Felton Jarvis and Huey Meaux began to book studio time at Fame, Hall apparently felt he needed another guitar player, and imported Reggie for those sessions, resulting in some of the undiscovered gems listed below.

By early March, Reggie was back at Royal Studio in Memphis as their full-time studio guitarist. The session band in those days also included Bobby Emmons on keyboards, Jerry 'Satch' Arnold on drums, and either Bobby Stewart or Mike Leech on bass. Whether the label said Bill Black's Combo, Ace Cannon or Willie Mitchell, this was the core group cranking out those tight trademark Hi instrumentals that would become known as 'The Sound of Memphis'. The entries in this initial log book become less detailed at this point, and understandably so. When The Beatles, who had made such a big splash on The Ed Sullivan Show in February, were planning their first U.S. tour that Summer, they wanted Bill Black's Combo as one of their opening acts. Black was ill, and had been out of the picture for some time, and so it was up to Reggie to figure out how to make that happen... small wonder there were no entries in the log book after April 10th! The road band he put together, consisting of Sammy Creason, Bill English, Bubba Vernon, Bob Tucker and Ed Logan, set out on a 24 city whirlwind tour of the U.S. that August, then travelled to Europe in September as part of a 26 day package tour that featured Billy J. Kramer, The Ronettes and The Yardbirds, among others.

Upon their return to Memphis in October, it was back to business as usual on South Lauderdale Avenue. As noted, this initial log book is rather sparse on Royal session details for this period, and so we've included all 1964 releases on Hi and it's subsidiary label, M.O.C. (nobody seems quite sure what those intials stood for at this point!). Although we know that Reggie plays guitar on all of these records, M.O.C. 660 is particulary interesting as it is the first of only two 45s ever issued under his own name! Just like over on The Cosimo Code, there are links provided to a 45cat info page for each record, where available. We also intended to provide playable YouTube links to as many songs as we could find, but there were so many we couldn't find, that we decided to create our own YouTube Channel and host them there. Clicking on any track will open an audio player that will play all of them sequentially. (tip: if the player obstructs the text on the page, simply go 'fullscreen' and everything should fit nicely)

Be sure to check out our expanded 1964 liner notes page, and join in the discussion. Thanks!

    - special thanks to 45cat, BSNpubs, Peter Hoogers, John Broven, Martin Hawkins, Jenny Lynn Young, Georgette Keller and, of course, Reggie!