Thomas Wayne & The DeLons

Thomas Wayne & The DeLons (Memphis, TN.)

Personnel :

Thomas Wayne (Lead)

Sandra Brown

Nancy Reed

Carol Moss




Discography :

1958 - Tragedy / Saturday Date (Fernwood 109 )
1959 - Eternally / Scandalizing My Name (Fernwood 111)
1959 - Gonna Be Waitin' / Just Beyond (Fernwood 113)



Biography :


When elvis was conscripted into the US Army in early 1958, his backing trio, Scotty Moore, Bill Black, and DJ Fontana, were made redundant. Retourning to Memphis, Black and Moore found themselves at a lose end. Black took a day job (pending the subsequent formation of Bill Black' Combo) while moore fell in with owners of Fernwood Records, a local label run on a shoestring by a memphis truck driver named Slim Wallace.

Thomas Wayne with Scotty Moore

Neither Moore nor Black harboured any lingering thoughs about a Fernwood session they were invited to play on in September 1958. The whole deal, from the singer to the song, seemed so low key as to be barely memorable. Or so they thought.

The Vocalist, Thomas Wayne, was the younger brother of Johnny Cash's guitarist, Luther Perkins while the only other personnel present, aside from Moore & Black, were The DeLons, (Sandra Brown, Nancy Reed, Carol Moss), Three school friends of wayne's who had come in as background vocalists. Out-takes feature a drummer using brushes but he was ommited from the final arrangement.

 
Billboard's review offered room for optimism : "Fine warble by Wayne on a haunting ballad with a beat that is nicely backed by a fem chorus. It can attract." This prescience proved well founded. Something of a 'sleeper', "Tragedy" did not reach Billboards's chart until February 1959 eventually peaking at #5.

The Fleetwoods took the song back into the top 10 in 1961. Wayne, who was born in Bathsville, Mississippi in 1940, was killed in a motoring accident in 1971.

Songs :

    
Saturday Date                              Just Beyond                Gonna Be Waitin'

   
Tragedy                                    Eternally

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