Stonewall Jackson News

Aubrey Mayhew's legendary 1960s Nashville indie label, Little Darlin' Records, is finally getting respectful reissue treatment through Koch Records' Nashville division.

The label was home to classic recordings by Johnny Paycheck, Bobby Helms, Stonewall Jackson and Jeannie C. Riley .

Just out is "The Little Darlin' Sounds of Johnny Paycheck: The Beginning," the first of a comprehensive reissue program of early Paycheck material. (The artist changed the spelling of his last name to PayCheck before his death.)

Also newly released is "The Little Darlin' Sound of Bobby Helms." Next up are sets from Jackson and steel-guitar great Lloyd Green, both slated for July 27.

Nashville music historian/journalist Robert K. Oermann notes that the reissues celebrate not only an extraordinary label but an extraordinary era in Music City history.

"The company was one of the coolest country independent labels at a time when Music Row had dozens and dozens of them," Oermann explains. "Now the majors have virtually a stranglehold on the charts, but in the 1960s, a lot more was possible, and Little Darlin's output and roster are the proof."

Citing in particular what was then the "radical" sound of Paycheck and Green, Koch Records Nashville general manager Nick Hunter says: "It was one of the smallest but most influential labels Nashville has ever seen. It didn't sell a lot of records, but it was one of the few labels back in those times that was still having fun -- maybe the first anti-establishment label Nashville ever had."

The reissues also bring Music Row veteran Hunter's career almost full circle.

"I was working at a one-stop in Kansas City in 1967 and was enamored with the Paycheck sound. I called Aubrey up, and he offered me a job in Nashville," Hunter recalls. He briefly worked for Little Darlin' before starting his major-label career with Columbia.

Despite moving to the majors, Hunter stayed in touch with Mayhew and attempted to reissue the Little Darlin' catalog 10 years ago while he was at Giant Records. But Hunter left Giant before he could take any action toward that goal.

"Then a year ago -- at Koch -- I got to thinking again and called him," Hunter says. "Slowly but surely, we put the deal together."

DIGGING UP CATALOG

Hunter now aims to build an extensive, chronological Paycheck reissue series starting with the artist's 1966 label debut.

Among other Little Darlin' artists with product forthcoming are Riley, who recorded for the label before her career breakthrough, and Texas rockabilly/country legend Joe Poovey. He scored the 1966 hit "Heart Full of Love" for Little Darlin' after changing his name to Johnny Dallas.

"There's an incredible amount of stuff that we're still digging up," Hunter says, pointing to Mayhew's eccentric catalog.

"There's an album he put out years ago featuring a radio broadcast by Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans that will probably come out some day, and he has four unreleased sides on Clint Eastwood , including 'Burning Bridges' from 'Kelly's Heroes."'

But the Paycheck catalog, Hunter adds, is clearly "the centerpiece."

Mayhew says, "I recorded almost 500 sides on him, and so little got out. The real treasures are yet to be heard."

Noting the "experimental" nature of the Little Darlin' recordings, Mayhew says the first Paycheck reissue is "just as it was -- very crude. We didn't enhance it or anything, because that's the way it was, the way it started. To dress it up would be a commercial gimmick just to sell records, and anybody who understands Johnny Paycheck wants it raw to begin with."

Mayhew observes Paycheck's influence on the more celebrated Merle Haggard and George Jones .

"I dealt with all of them, and he was probably the best country singer that ever surfaced," he says.

"By the time we get finished," Hunter notes, "we'll have 100 to 150 albums out over a five- to seven-year period, 25 Paychecks."

Koch Records senior director of production and catalog development Dave Nives notes that Paycheck "unfortunately, because he was broke, rerecorded everything he did 50 times -- which accounts for real schlock in the marketplace.

"Now we're trying to counter that and show that these are his classic, great recordings. Other than the Country Music Foundation's 'The Real Mr. Heartache: The Little Darlin' Years,' they haven't been out."

Reuters/Billboard