LC: You started really young, as a songwriter, writing lyrics for a production company?
It was in Washington. I left the farm in North Carolina because my dad had died. I kept the farm going for two years by myself; it nearly killed me. I said, "I gotta get out of here." I had a sister in Washington who worked for the government, so I called her and said, "Polly, I need to get out of here." Her husband was a really great guy, and he said, "If I were you, I would go to someplace where you have a lot of freedom. There's a chain of restaurants here called the Hot Shoppes. Curb service, drive-in, and they have good restaurants. You can make money in tips." So I went to apply and got the job; $12 a week, plus tips, in 1949. I got a tip one time for $100, because it was a congressman who wanted to park in a hidden place so he could visit with his "sweetheart." I put him behind the equipment shed and got them cokes. Hot Shoppes kept promoting me. The company was founded by J. Willard Marriott. They kept promoting me until finally they brought me in to run the commissary. The commissary covered one city block, curb to curb. Ground floor was the butcher shop, where they brought all their meat from out in the stockyards. Next one up was a kitchen. Next floor up was a bakery. Top floor was personnel. When they told me they wanted me to take over, I said, "Wait a minute. I don't think I'm qualified to do that." By this time, they had 34 restaurants and catered all the airlines out of Washington. You could go into any one of the Hot Shoppes and get a barbecued hamburger or a cheeseburger; all the meals were done in the commissary, put in insulated cabinets, and shipped out. Now I had to judge how much each one of the restaurants would be using. And the inventory, man...
KH: What year was this?
1951. Anyway, they said, "Yes, you can handle it." It was stressful. After a while I told the personnel director, "I need to get out of here for a few days." He said, "Why don't you relieve a couple of curb managers? They're going on vacation." So the second day I'm out at the 14th Street Hot Shoppe on the other side of Washington and I see this Cadillac in the lot at about five in the afternoon. He screeched to a halt, started blinking his lights, and blowing his horn. I go over and tell him I'll have someone with him in just a minute. He said, "We're in a real hurry. Just bring us two barbecues and two chocolate shakes." All the guys were busy, so I did and he tipped me a dollar. The girl who was with him was movie star beautiful. The next afternoon he's in the lot again with a different girl, just as gorgeous. This went on for ten days. Different girls. So he said to me one day, "When's your day off? Why don't you come down to my club?" So I went on my night off. He was a great emcee; the greatest I ever saw. Tennessee Ernie Ford picked up a lot from him.
KH: What was his name?
Billy Strickland. He played steel guitar, electric guitar, and acoustic guitar really well. He had a persona that was magnetic. So I'm down in the club one time and there were about 1,400 people in there. He said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we're so fortunate tonight to have a dear friend of mine in the house. He's one of the great songwriters of all time. I'll venture to say he said that if you name your three favorite songs, at least one this man will have written. Why don't we give a big Washington famous welcome to Mr. Fred Rose?" I knew of Fred Rose. He'd written one of my favorite pop tunes, "Deed I Do." I was spun when the spotlight hit me in the face. He said, "Now, ladies and gentlemen, Fred and I are such good friends. I don't think it would be unduly opposing upon him to ask him to write a song before your very eyes." Oh, the place went berserk. I thought I was dreaming or something! Can you imagine? He said, "Take Mr. Rose something to write on." Someone ran over with a legal pad. People started hitting the tabletops like rain and were lining up for an autograph. I tried to get out, but I was in a corner booth. I'd written a little bit of stuff in high school, so I wrote a poem. I sent it up to him. He looked at it and said, "Hmm, you all are going to love this." He turned around to his band, called the chord changes, and kicked it off. It didn't sound bad! The place went crazy. Before I could get out, he had sung it about ten times. He made $1,300 in tips singing my song. He said, "We wrote a pretty good song. We need to do more of it!" Long story short, we started doing that.
KH: You started writing songs with Billy Strickland?
