I went to Technical School up in Madison, Wisconsin. Really a pretty unexciting two years with the exception of listening to people like Ernest Tubb on a local radio station where he did a live show several times a day. One time I got into trouble and ended up in the stockade for a few days. There I met a couple of guys who were really hung on country music. One of the prisoners was gonna do 5 years in Eleven Worth and he asked me to sing him some Ernest Tubb songs.
Tomorrow never comes'.
That's really where it all began. In the spring of 1948 you bought a guitar, learned some basic chords and cut yourself a few metal dubs on an old Bell Disc Recorder in the back of a radio shop you ran in LaGrange, Kentucky. I drove up and down Third Street in Louisville past Radio WLOU for an hour and finally walked in and told the receptionist that I was interested in being on the radio but didn't know the proper procedure. I asked her to let me talk to Howard Whited, a blind guitar player who was on WLOU at the time. I wanted to play him the metal dubs.