(The Story of Rex Tanner from the upcoming CD, "The Boys From Modesto"
)
"I've always lived a double life of sorts. Early in life I was presented with
opportunities to develop and 
exploit my natural abilities. I didn't take
to school much, but my father opened a plumbing business across the street from
our house when I was eight years old and I was afforded an opportunity to sample
the various levels of business and life from first hand experience. We
were hard working people. My parents, Rex and DeLois Tanner, migrated to
California from Oklahoma and Missouri respectively during the great depression.
The most derogatory thing they could say about anyone was that you were lazy. I
made sure they never said that about me. My father was successful in his
business and soon a new Cadillac Fleetwood sedan could be seen protruding from
the garage of our 400 square ft. house. I was successful too. I spent whatever
time I could earning money and learning about work, business and life from the
endless procession of workers, vendors, and customers that passed through our
plumbing company.
My father was a gambler.
Literally. As a teenage boy he worked for a syndicate of gamblers who operated
outside the law in eastern Oklahoma. Eventually his employers evolved into bank
robbers and although he hadn't become involved in this segment of their
activities their exploits caused him enough discomfort with the law to
precipitate a move to California to avoid scrutiny. His gambling now was
confined to business and he new how to play his hand. He taught me how to play
mine too and by the time I was sixteen I was earning substantially more than my
teachers and couldn't be dissuaded from leaving school. A couple of years in the
U.S. Army and then a decade of learning and working in the business, eventually
opening my own business at the age of thirty.
My other life began when I was eight
or nine years old and my dad began bringing records
home from the jukebox at the
restaurant where his sister waited tables. There were various styles of music,
but I remember my favorite being the songs by Louis Jordan. I would listen to
these songs for hours, memorizing the words and trying to imitate the different
artists I had heard. We had an old rocking chair and I used to sit in that
rocker and sing with closed eyes 'till my mother would literally throw me out of
the house. Well, maybe not literally, but she would have if I'd refused
to go. My father was a jazz whistler. He had heard record and radio shows where
a man named Elmo Tanner (no relation) had been featured as a whistler and he had
patterned his whistling after his. I remember him whistling Fats Waller and Duke
Ellington tunes using his own arrangements. Whenever we would travel in the car,
I would sing and my father would accompany with his whistling. I never sang in
school or church, other than with the student body or congregation and I wasn't
interested in learning a musical instrument. I just sang for my own personal
pleasure. I doubt a dozen people ever new I could sing. I certainly had no
intention of ever letting it be known. But everyday I would find time to be
alone and express my feelings through my singing.
Naturally, since singing was mostly
an emotional experience and outlet for me, it wasn't long 'til I
found the
blues. First it was the early rhythm and blues of the mid-fifties. Later it was
the traditional blues of Leadbelly, Muddy Waters and Lightnin' Hopkins. My
earliest influences after Mr. Jordan were Joe Turner, Jimmy Reed and the great
Ray Charles. Not that I sounded like any of them, I wasn't blessed with an
instrument that could achieve another's sound. I was stuck with what
came out and the influence of the culture I was born into, just like everyone
else; and that was pretty much all there was. But I learned attitude from them
and the intricacies of expression that cause another person to feel what you are
feeling. For many years I was contented to sing alone without accompaniment
simply for my own enjoyment, lost in the music, oblivious to the cares of the
world. When I was twenty-three, my brother's friend surprised me by getting out
a guitar and playing and singing a couple of tunes. I had no idea he could do
that. Immediately I realized if he could play guitar well enough to sing with
it, I could too. He said it only took him six months to learn enough to sing and
offered to sell me an old Kay acoustic guitar with strings about an inch off the
neck for twenty-five dollars. I bought it and learned the few chords he said I
needed and became a folk singer. Now I was legit. I drove my friends and family
nuts singing every three-chord song I could get my hands on. I eventually
learned to play well enough to strum the chords to about any song I cared to
learn. I began to hear tunes inside the chord structures and experimented with
making my own melodies.
When I was about thirty years old
I
began to feel the urge to express my own words and ideas through
music and so I
began to write seriously. After about three or four years people started saying
I should try to do something commercially with my songs. So I took 'em to L.A.
and showed 'em what I had. I don't mean I moved to L.A. I mean I would visit
L.A. for an afternoon and drop in at publisher's offices and leave my tunes. The
response was positive from the beginning and I was able to place a few tunes
over the years and even signed a recording contract with a major label. Learned
a lot about the music business without ever having to actually be in the music
business. Found I was pretty much incompatible with the creatures that inhabit
that region of the cosmos. Also learned that I couldn't adapt what I do to what
they might happen to be looking for that particular day. So I just keep doing
what I've always done. Playin' it for and just being myself. I hope you enjoy
listening to "Feel The Heat" and "Classy Women" as much as I did makin' 'em."
Gary Rex Tanner
