QUITMAN — Music has always been a part of Bobby New’s life.
His earliest recollection of listening to music dates back to the radio days of the late 1940s. Over the years, he taught himself how to play the guitar and piano and refers to himself as a “backyard picker.” He still plays when he gets a chance and often uses music as a ministry by visiting nursing homes.
New, 74, has also observed local entertainers — especially those who grew up around Drasco in Cleburne County — who have gone on to attain some degree of success. He talks about some of those people in an article he titled “The Stars Shine on Drasco.”
New prefaces his article by saying he has documentation on all his information. Much of the information he shares in his article can be found by doing research on the internet.
“How many people are aware of the fact that people from Wolf Bayou, Prim, Drasco
and Ida have either written or recorded songs that went to Number One on country music and pop charts?” he asks in his article, which he wrote for his older sister. “Yes, that is true and gives us the right to be proud of the accomplishments of these artists that came out of an era greatly affected by the drought and Depression of the ’30s.”
New, who is a retired professional land surveyor, he remembers “in 1948 when [Harry S. Truman] was elected president, and we listened to his inauguration in January 1949 on the radio,” he said.
“Dad had to go to town (Heber Springs) and get a battery for the radio so we could listen to it,” New told visitors during a recent trip to his home. “I didn’t really understand what it was all about, but I knew it was important because the neighbors came over and listened, too.
“Later in 1949, Dad bought an electric radio, and we listened to the Grand Ole Opry. We listened to Wayne Raney of Wolf Bayou, who was playing harmonica and singing ‘Why Don’t You Haul Off and Love Me.’
“I listened to country music every morning and afternoon from then until 1952.”
New said he and his family picked cotton in eastern Arkansas when he was 5. His family picked cotton until 1952; then they went to California to pick fruit from May to November of each year. They did that until 1955.
“In 1954, as itinerant workers living in Atwater, California,
we were Arkies trying to adjust to a different culture,” he writes in his article. “While mother, dad and sister worked in the cannery and older brother in a crate factory in town, my younger brother and I stayed home with very little to do, as we were too young for public work.
“We again turned to our radio for most of our entertainment and to our pleasant surprise, we found … Wayne Raney disk-jockeying on
Radio Station KTRB in Modesto [California]. Okies and Arkies listened to this station religiously as the station provided us with a country music connection, and Wayne had a way of connecting with these people.”
New said Raney and another Arkansas entertainer, Lonnie Glosson of Judsonia, performed concerts during the time Raney was doing the radio show.
New and his family were invited to meet these two entertainers while they lived in California.
During this meeting, they met another Arkansas entertainer — Dean Manuel, who was born in Cleveland in Conway County and grew up near the Cleburne/Independence County line. Manuel was the pianist for the Chester Smith Band and, later, the piano player for Jim Reeves.
“While working with Jim Reeves, Dean was a contributing factor to Jim’s huge success with the hit song ‘He’ll Have to go,’” New writes in his article. “One day in July of 1964, Jim and Dean had flown to Batesville to take care of business and visit family.” New said Dean had relatives living in a small community between Batesville and Concord, and one of those relatives was a cousin, Esther Singer, whom New had visited while she resided at a nursing home in Heber Springs.
“On that fateful date of July, Jim and Dean went by to visit with Mrs. Singer,” New writes in his article.
New said Mrs. Singer told him: “As Jim and Dean were getting ready to leave, Dean looked upward to the sky at the ominous thunderheads and told his cousin that he didn’t have a good feeling about flying back to Nashville, [Tennessee].”
Manuel and Reeves were killed July 31, 1964, in a plane crash during a thunderstorm returning to Nashville from Batesville.
New points out in his article that Wayne Raney’s wife, Loys Southerland, was “a gifted songwriter.”
“She, along with Louie Clark … both of the Drasco area, jointly wrote a song, ‘Let Old Mother Nature Have Her Way,’” New writes. “That song was taken to No. 1 on the country music charts by Carl Smith back in 1951.”
New also discusses Melvin Endsley in his article. Endsley, who was born in Drasco, wrote “Singing the Blues,” which, New said, was the first No. 1 hit for Marty Robbins. New said he met Endsley in 1971.
Also in the early 1970s, New met Howard and Virgie Joy, who had moved to Quitman from the state of Washington. New said Virgie Joy grew up in Prim.
New writes, “Mrs. Joy called me telling me their son was coming to Arkansas on a visit and asked me if I could get a group of musicians together to back up her son at a musical event in Quitman, since she knew I was a back-porch picker who knew other musicians that might play.”
New said he got the band together for the Joys’ son, Homer Joy, who wrote the song “Streets of Bakersfield” for Buck Owens, who made it popular when he remade it with Dwight Yokum.
“Sure you’ve heard of a singer from Texas by the name of Gene Watson, a very popular singer who had lots of hits back in the 1980s,” New writes. “Helen Warren of Ida, Arkansas, according to her daughter-in-law, Linda Warren, wrote the hit song titled ‘Nothing Sure Looked Good on You.’
“I knew Helen and got the pleasure of hearing her sing that song, among others. I also had the pleasure of
visiting with Linda, who lives in Ida on the Drasco mail route. She shared with me interesting facts about the career of her mother-in-law.”
New mentions other area musicians, including Teddy Riedel, a singer/songwriter and pianist who lived in Quitman and Rose Bud. New also discusses Almeda Riddle of Greers Ferry, a folksinger whose works are in the Smithsonian Institute and who, New wrote, was an inspiration to Jimmy Driftwood, who was instrumental in getting the Ozark Folk Center located in Mountain View.
New said that by writing his article, he wanted to honor “seven entertainers who put Drasco on the map” — Wayne Raney, Loys Southerland, Louie
Clark, Melvin Endsley, Helen Warren, Homer Joy and Dean Manuel.
“There should be a monument erected in Drasco to memorialize the importance of these individuals in the music industry, and also others … ,” New writes in his article. “This article is to recognize the contribution that those persons mentioned have made to the entertainment business, whose background comes from an area of a radius of 10 to 15 miles, with Drasco being the hub.
“This community is sparsely populated and is growing but hasn’t lost its friendliness and charm. People here are still your best friends and possess the qualities that really make a community, as this is one of the best places on Earth to live.”
Born Sept. 20, 1942, New grew up in Quitman, a son of the late Fred and Verble New. He has one sister, Iva Gene Baldridge, 82, of Pangburn, and two brothers, Max New, 78, of Conway, and Farrell New, 71, of Quitman.
Bobby New graduated from Quitman High School in 1960. He took his first courses in
survey technology at Petit Jean Vo-Tech (now the University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton), then studied at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. He further studied survey technology through a program in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He is a member of the Arkansas Society of Professional Surveyors, doing business as New Land Surveying.
New said he has been a registered land surveyor since 1967. He retired in 2000 but still works occasionally.
New has been married to his wife, Linda, for 20 years. Linda New said she was a “career schoolteacher” (the librarian at Quitman Elementary School) before she married him when she was 49.
“We rode the school bus together when we were younger,” Bobby New said, adding that they reconnected later in life. He has one daughter by a previous marriage — Shaylene DeBusk, 30, who lives in Conway.