Biography
Lou Graham ranked among the first performers to commit rockabilly material to wax when he cut sides for Ivin Ballen’s Gotham Records, the Philadelphia imprint. Born in rural North Carolina as one of ten siblings, he may have carried the full name Lou Graham Lyerly. An early affinity for country sounds led him, after a stint in the United States Navy, into radio work as both vocalist and disc jockey. His singing bore a noticeable resemblance to that of the slightly older Hank Williams. While spending eighteen months at WPWA in Chester, Pennsylvania, Graham met Bill Haley, frontman of the area’s Saddlemen country outfit; Haley in turn secured Graham’s contract with Gotham. At a 1951 session backed by an unidentified ensemble, Graham recorded “Two Timin’ Blues” and “Long Gone Daddy,” then early the following year cut four additional titles—“I’m Lonesome,” “Sweet Bunch of Roses,” “Please Make Up Your Fickle Mind,” and “My Heart Tell Me”—with Haley’s Saddlemen supplying the accompaniment. He maintained a steady schedule as a deejay at WTNJ in Trenton, New Jersey, and served as a television announcer on WDEL in Wilmington, Delaware. By the late 1950s Graham was also appearing regularly in nightclubs, parks, and western jamborees, sharing bills with Webb Pierce, Hank Thompson, and Ernest Tubb while performing country and hillbilly fare. His most enduring recording legacy arrived in 1957 with the Coral Records single “Wee Willie Brown.” Krazy Kat Records later compiled the Saddlemen-era tracks onto an album in the 1970s, and Collectables reissued the Gotham material on CD under the title Long Gone Daddy.