JIMMY WAGES

 

 Jimmy Wages que tenía la misma edad que Elvis Presley. Fue a la escuela el  con en Tupelo antes de que Presley decidiera rasladarse a Memphis, Tennessee. Wages pasó -a diferencia de Elvis toda su vida en Tupelo en donde adquirió una fama relativa, y muy discreta sobre todo si la comparamos con la de su amigo  de la infancia. 

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Jimmy Wages (c. 1935 † 1999) was an American rockabilly musician. Wages became known within the rockabilly scene mainly for his originally unreleased songs for Sun Records.

Life

Childhood and youth

Jimmy Wages stated in an interview with Colin Escott that he was the same age as Elvis Presley. He went to school with Presley in Tupelo before the latter moved to Memphis, Tennessee. Unlike Presley, Wages spent his entire life relatively unnoticed in Tupelo.

Wages began performing with some local musicians and together with the Miller Sisters in Tupelo. After the Miller Sisters went to Memphis and recorded some singles on Sam Phillips' label Sun Records, Wages also tried his hand at the record business.

In 1956, Wages traveled to Memphis with bassist Jesse Carter and held his first session for Sun. In total, he held five sessions, in which about eight to ten songs were recorded, but none of them were finally released. Sam Phillips was eager to release Wages' Mad Man, but Jack Clement, who coached Wages, had doubts about the success and convinced Phillips to do so. Since Wages did not have his own band, he was accompanied on most tracks by Sun's studio musicians Jimmy Van Eaton (drums), Ray Harris (guitar), Jerry Lee Lewis or Charlie Rich (piano) and Stan Kesler (steel guitar). Although Wages himself played guitar and piano, he only sang.

Wages material at Sun was written exclusively by himself, which was probably decisive for the failure at Sun. Wages' bizarre lyrics, ambivalent on the one hand by conservative moral concepts and on the other hand by then modern views of youth, were certainly not made for the charts and in no way corresponded to contemporary pop songs. Wages thus stands in the tradition of many other musicians of this time.

Wages left Sun some time after that. In 1960, he held a session for Hi Records, overseen by his former guitarist Ray Harris. Wages knew Harris from his early days in Tupelo, but the recordings were again unsuccessful. However, there is still an obscure record on TomBigBee Records from Pontotoc, Mississippi that Wages never mentioned. It is unknown when the single was recorded. Although he did some recording for Stan Kesler in Memphis and at Woodland Studios in Nashville, Wages concentrated on touring activities in the years that followed. He toured across the USA and played in small bars, pubs and other events.

In the 1980s, Wages lived with his mother in a small house in Tupelo and still lived on his small and fickle income as a musician. Jimmy Wages died in 1999.

Discography

Year Title                                                       Label

Biggest Man Around / Right In The Middle TomBigBee 102

Unreleased titles

1957

Heartbreakin' Love

(Take Me From This) Garden of Evil                  Sun Records

Mad Man                                                                Sun Records

Miss Pearl

unidentified band