Clyde & Dudley, El Paso

The 'meat' for my original post on Clyde and Dudley of El Paso was pretty thin, the only information being what was to be found on the record label itself and a posting of two sets of Korea-related lyrics on the internet, including a song titled "Rice Paddy Daddy". Though I didn't include it in my original post the Clyde & Dudley disc is one of my favorite country releases from the area, partly because its inebriated feel. Clyde Hooten himself came across my original post and was kind enough to send along his story.



CLYDE & DUDLEY- The Girl God Took Away b/w Too Many Faces (Carousel 206)

I wonder how many people's stories have either started or ended with being drunk in El Paso's sister city, Ciudad Juarez. For some it was almost a rite of passage to make that walk across the bridge spanning the Rio to hit the Mexican bars and cantinas where the drinking age was almost non-existent. With things as violent and unpredictable as they are now across the Rio, fewer and fewer people are making that walk.

But being drunk in Juarez is how Clyde introduced his story...

I wrote The Girl God Took Away one drunken 1958 night in an appropriately named Juarez “dive” the Submarine Club. The "girl God took away" still exists and she is alive somewhere in Illinois. Too Many Faces was also a fifty-eightish nocturnal creation thought up during a dirt-road drive; El Paso Natural Gas Line Road south of the Carlsbad Highway, just west of the Hueco Mountains.

The songs were recorded in the claustrophobic studio of radio station KINT in El Paso and the masters were sent to Phoenix for pressing onto the Carousel record label. The label was named for the Carousel Club in Anapara, NM whose manager, Benny (?) owned the label and the record was released circa 1959.

Our record obtained good promotion thanks mainly to the then Program Manager of KHEY radio, Bob Scott, but promotion was only local. Benny (?) was arrested, convicted and served time for attempted bank robbery (true story) and so Dudley and I used to joke that we were off to a bad start, since our Manager, Whitey (?) had a nervous breakdown and the recording company’s owner, Benny (?) was sent to prison. Obviously, neither our talents nor the promotional efforts of Bob Scott could overcome the negative impacts of these mental health and penal issues on our singing careers (are you laughing yet?)

Dudley and I were both natives of El Paso, but Dudley passed away prematurely at age 32 in 1971. I on the other hand am still going strong (I think) at age 71.

You correctly credit me for the parody Springtime in Korea as well as Rice Paddy Daddy. Both were written while I was stationed with the U.S. Army at Camp Sarafi, Korea in 1962-63. (Lyrics for both songs can be found HERE. According to Clyde the song was written about a Buddah-esque Master Sergeant Rapp, recorded to reel-to-reel, and played at their mess hall in Korea). It was my Army service that interrupted my Country Music “career” although I’ve continued writing throughout the years, and these later years seem more productive than those of my youth.

I obtained a copyright on a book “Between the Hard Rock and this Place” with which I’ve really done nothing. It is a compilation of poems and song-lyrics I’ve written throughout the years.

Lastly, creativity must be genetic as it appears in each of my 3 children; daughter Christine Hooten is probably the greatest lyricist the world would ever see, if she would only let them take a peek, while my son Timothy, former Director of Ministry and Service at Azusa Pacific University . . . is not hiding his lamp in the closet. He is the COO of Blue Yonder Films (www.blueyonderfilms.com) (Hoodwinked!) Tim’s has many projects working . . . several films tied up in studios and one very exciting project, an indie film entitled Jeffie Was Here. Jeffie should be released later this year . . . hopefully by this summer.


Thanks to Clyde for the info on he and Dudley's Carousel release and thanks for his permission to run the story and the picture he supplied (caption by me).