Page 24 - BiTS_11_NOVEMBER_2025

His parents were not musicians, but they enjoyed dancing and listening to the music
of the day at The Cotton Club, whilst the children played outside in the fields, from
where they too could hear the music.

Times were often hard in those days, but his parents never complained, even when

his Father had to take a job driving the truck that sucked out septic tanks. However,
in 1951 the family moved to Fort Worth, Texas, where his Father had taken a job as
a brakeman on the railroad, where two of his brothers also worked. Fort Worth was

a boom town, off the back of the oil and military defence industries.

Young Delbert was tuning into as many radio
stations as he could find, and bcame a huge

fan of Hank Williams, who was to die
tragically only two years later, at the age of
29, as a result of drink and drugs. Delbert
enjoyed singing the songs he heard, and had

no particular thoughts of performing, but his
friends were of the opinion that he should
be on stage. One night, in 1953, at a square

dance, he was persuaded to do just that,
accompanied only by a 78 rpm recording of
the song ‘Oh Johnny’, and it went down so
well that Delbert became somewhat of a

local child star overnight!

Although this impromptu performance was
something of an eye opener for Delbert, the

life changing experience happened when a
friend of his brother turned up at the house
one day with a guitar, and played a Hank

Williams song - “I hung on every single word he said, and watched every move he
made. I wanted to learn to play guitar and sing like that as bad as I’d ever wanted
anything”.

Another friend of his brother also played guitar, and took the time to show the

enthusiastic Delbert some chords, and he eventually scraped together $3.50 to buy
a beat-up old Stella guitar - “That old Stella was a piece of shit, but I practiced and
learned chords and figured out songs. It was terrible, but man, I loved it”!

By the mid-50s Delbert had discovered Big Joe Turner, Elvis Presley and Bill Haley,
and in 1957 he played his first gig - just him with his guitar, at the Big V Jamboree.
It was just one song, “Crazy Arms” by Ray Price. Apparently the sound was terrible,
but the audience enjoyed it. Later that Summer an aunt and uncle invited him to

holiday with them in Florida. Believing that he had some musical talent, they rented
a little Martin guitar for him, and entered him in a local talent contest. He must have