Loudermilk, who was born on a kitchen table in Durham, will be inducted into the N.C. Music Hall of Fame. [More background...]
Loudermilk’s songs have been recorded by artists in the country, rock, pop and other genres. The bluesy “Tobacco Road” was inspired by Marvin’s Alley in Durham, and has been recorded by Lou Rawls, Edgar Winter and many other artists. More than 200 artists have recorded the song, Loudermilk said in a phone interview Wednesday as he traveled for the hall of fame induction.
He cited three early influences on his music. “I grew up listening to Eddy Arnold on the ‘Grand Ole Opry,’ Bill Monroe on the ‘Grand Ole Opry,’ and Josh White and Harry Belafonte. I loved those people,” he said. “It thrilled me that I had a No. 1 country hit with Eddy Arnold years later.”
He also was influenced by a man who first introduced him to the classical guitar of Andres Segovia, and the music of Bach. When he was 15, he delivered telegrams in Durham, and one day heard an elderly man, a house painter named Ernest Moon, playing classical guitar. Moon “opened up a whole vista of music, a whole genre,” he said. Classical music, the music he heard on the “Grand Ole Opry” and “the rock and roll that was on its way” made up his music, Loudermilk said.
Born March 31, 1934, Loudermilk grew up in a family that belonged to the Salvation Army, and he was strongly influenced by church singing. He was born on a table in the kitchen of the house at Iredell and Knox Streets, he said.
His songwriting career began when he was a staff musician and artist at WTVD, where he performed “A Rose and a Baby Ruth,” a poem he set to music. One of the listeners was a UNC freshman named George Hamilton IV, who would go on to have a career in country music, who liked the tune and recorded it. Hamilton had a hit record with the song, and later with Loudermilk’s “Abilene.”
Hamilton will be at the ceremony today, and will present the award to Loudermilk.
Loudermilk also wrote Eddie Cochran’s first hit record, “Sittin’ in the Balcony,” “Ebony Eyes,” which the Everly Brothers recorded, and many other tunes.
Loudermilk said he has written about 1,000 songs, 350 of which have been recorded by some 1,100 artists.
One of those songs, “Cherokee Nation,” became a 1971 hit for Mark Lindsay. Loudermilk said the inspiration came some 30 years ago when he was in Cherokee on the western end of the state and saw some of the members of the Cherokee nation walking in the snow. He wrote the song as a tribute to their traditions, “kind of a current statement on the situation of their condition,” he said.
Six years ago, he received an invitation from some Cherokees in Delacroix, Okla., and was given a medal of honor. At that ceremony, a member of the nation opened a book that had been kept of Cherokees who had survived the Trail of Tears. Two of the names were Homer Loudermilk and Martha Loudermilk. John D. Loudermilk had not known of his Cherokee connection when he wrote that hit song, he said.
Loudermilk, now 77, said he still writes songs, but fewer because he does not have to write them for a living.
“It’s quite an honor,” he said of his induction today, and said he was looking forward to meeting the other musicians being honored.
Other inductees to the N.C. Music Hall of Fame are Anthony Dean Griffey, Ben Folds, Billy “Crash” Craddock, Clyde Moody and Billy Edd Wheeler.
Source: heraldsun.com
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