Several places lay claim to guitar icon Travis Wammack. Walnut, Miss., where he was born. Memphis, where he first started playing as a studio musician for any act that needed a guitarist. And Muscle Shoals, where he recorded himself and backed up musicians for decades.
Travis Wammack, then a little-known studio guitarist, had experimented for months in the early Sixties with adaptations to his speakers. He wanted to produce a certain guitar sound, sort of a scratchy, distorted tone.
He got it. The sound. He made arrangements to present his invention to musical promoters in Memphis. They didn't like it, or didn't get it. Or maybe they just acted like they didn't get it. They sent him home empty-handed.
A few months later, Travis was driving down the road listening to the radio. He heard the sound that he himself had developed at the beginning of a new record. He almost had a wreck.
"That is my sound," he said to himself.
After the guitar intro that was distinctly his distorted sound, the singer joined in:
"I can't get no …. Satisfactshun. I can't get no …. Satisfactshun…"
It was the Rolling Stones releasing their latest, and it was destined to go Number One. It made that distorted, scratchy guitar sound famous. Many other musicians using it followed.
To this day, Travis Wammack remains convinced that somebody in Memphis stole his idea to produce the distorted guitar sound. He never got credit for the invention of the nuevo guitar sound of the '60s and '70s, and he never got any money.
The sound caught on without attribution to Travis. It is called by different names and has a few variations: shredding, guitar pyrotechnics, Fuzztone, distortion, and Scratchy, which became the title of a solo instrumental hit by Travis Wammack himself in 1964 when he was 17 years old.
Finally, maybe Travis Wammack will get credit from the public and from the musical players from 1960 until now. Maybe, just maybe, the untold story of Travis Wammack and his guitar innovation will be told. It would be at a 'Tribute to Travis Wammack' set for June 3 in the historic Shoals Theatre in downtown Florence, Alabama. Here is the official trailer for the once-in-70-years event.
FAME Studios proudly presents A Tribute to Travis Wammack, an unforgettable night honoring one of the greatest session guitarists and musical innovators of all time. Hosted at the Historic Shoals Theatre in downtown Florence, Alabama, this special event will bring together legendary musicians and vocalists to perform songs that Travis Wammack wrote, recorded, or played on.
The trailer does not state that this is the 68th anniversary of Wammack's entry into the professional music business. That may qualify for the Guinness Book of World Records. He has been in the music business since he was 11, when he became the youngest member of the musicians' union—also a record.
And at 78, he still loves it. He has never burned out. His health has put him into retirement, but not his feelings toward music and musicians.
Wammack started his career in the Memphis music scene in the Sixties. In 1969, he felt the call to be a studio guitarist at Rick Hall's FAME Recording Studios in Muscle Shoals. That was it. It was Sweet Home Alabama after that.
The June 3 tribute will include nearly every musician whose path has crossed with Travis Wammack – if they are still alive and able.
It's an all-Alabama list of musicians and all-American:
Guitarists Will McFarland, Mitch Mann and Kelvin Holly; bassists Jimbo Hart and Bob Wray; keyboardists Clayton Ivey and Randy McCormick; Muscle Shoals Horns alumnus Ronnie Eades; vocalists Marie Lewey and Cindy Walker; Snakeman Band drummers Chris Forrest, Jimmy Whitehead and Mike Lawley.
Guest vocalists/musicians Wayne Chaney, Jerry Phillips, Mickey Buckins, Lenny LeBlanc, Travis "Monkee" Wammack, Jr., Dave "Microwave Dave" Gallaher, The Midnighters, and the Cartee Brothers.
If you are a musician who played with Travis Wammack but your name is not on the list, come on anyway and play. Or sing.
Some of the musicians will tell Travis Wammack stories. Of course, some Travis Wammack stories cannot be told.
Now, Wammack has placed his name on a University of North Alabama Entertainment Industry Program scholarship. The concert will raise funds for the Travis Wammack Endowed Scholarship.
One high point in Wammack's career was spending 12 years, from 1984 to 1996, as rock legend Little Richard's bandleader.
"I put his band together," Wammack said. "He called me wanting a good Southern rock and roll band."
With Travis Wammack at 78, in declining health and in retirement, the June 3 tribute will likely mark the closing chapter of a long musical life. This is the tribute that Elvis and Roy Orbison never had while they were alive to see it.
Jim' Zig' Zeigler's beat is the colorful and positive about Alabama -- her people, places, events, groups and prominent deaths. He is a former Alabama Public Service Commissioner and State Auditor. You can reach him for comments at [email protected].
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