Biography
The night clerk handling the overnight shift at mountain cottages in Predeal, Romania, rarely fields many overseas calls after dark, yet the diminutive hunchback sharing the double suite with his hirsute companion has drawn notice. The previous evening brought a French academic initially mistaken for someone fixated on slashing wrists; the caller instead supplied particulars concerning the life of German conductor Karl Ristenpart. This evening the caller proved far more difficult to follow—an American whose remarks touched on hay rides and Bayou boys.
"Ah! Buzz!" quoth guest Igor when he got the latest message.
The home office received immediate notification despite the late hour. "It is the Buzz Busby thing, don't say I didn't warn you," Igor began. "The Wayne Busby biography, mainly, but also the Buzz Busby, possibly the Busby Brothers...did we do that?" Papers rustled on the receiving end. "Remember I thought some of the details and quotes were spurious. You can never trust details about poison gas attacks. They should have learned that in the first Gulf War."
Primary focus belongs to Wayne Busby, whose legal name is Dr. Wayne Busbice, because he took the initiative to correct errors circulating about the Busby Brothers, a vintage country and western act. The better-known Buzz Busby, born Bernarr Busbice, has lacked Internet access since his death in 2000. A sharp divergence between documented military records and music journalism appears in the initial claim that "Wayne Busby chose to pursue a military career" instead of committing to music full-time as Buzz Busby did.
"I pursued a career primarily in education," Dr. Wayne Busbice advised in a 2006 shout-out. Employment in public schools carried him from classroom teacher through counselor, assistant principal, and principal. Parallel military service included four years of active Air Force duty plus Air National Guard tenure ending in retirement at the rank of lieutenant colonel. "Duties as inspector general and director of logistics" followed, Busbice continues, and he "rose to the rank of Major."
A secondary pursuit involved the Webco record label. The artist participated in both engineering and management for several independent country releases. Busbice held ownership from 1981 through 1990, directing a recording studio, record label, and music publishing company named Old Home Place Music. "I sold it to Bill Emerson," Busbice says, acknowledging a transaction contrary to customary cautions against contractual dealings with bluegrass musicians. Subsequent transfers placed the complete catalog assembled under Busbice and then Emerson with the sympathetic Pinecastle firm.
Returning to earlier years, the physician objects to a harshly negative quotation ascribed to him. Nine siblings endured hardship on the family farm, harvesting cotton and growing food for both consumption and sale. Such accounts typically frame the upbringing as an ordeal relieved only by country music broadcasts. "I don't believe 'It was horrible -- best I can say for it' about our early life is my quote," Busbice says. "It sounds like something Buzz might have said. It definitely does not reflect my opinion," he concludes firmly.
Weekly entertainment for many rural Southerners of that period centered on the Grand Ole Opry broadcast from WSM in Nashville each Saturday night. The Busbice household likewise tuned in to the Louisiana Hayride, a program on which brother Buzz Busby would later perform, although period sources occasionally list both siblings in the cast. Setting associations straight, Busbice notes that he did "occasionally play with the Bayou Boys, but never belonged to the group. I did organize and perform with the Busby Brothers." The sibling act formed when Wayne Busby and LeMoyne Busby began experimenting with guitars and transmitted their country music knowledge to young Buzz Busby at age eight. The three performed popular radio country numbers, initiating a family musical tradition that later turned professional.
The Busby boys occasionally entered the rockabilly sphere as well, though Wayne Busby's recording of a number entitled "Live Your Life with Care" may have seemed incongruously mild-mannered in that context. Perhaps the lyric offered counsel to Buzz Busby, whose career later foundered amid alcoholism and drug addiction. "At any rate, life was tough for the Busbice family and taking care would have been a real challenge," served as a somewhat trite preface to erroneous statements regarding father Otis Busbice. The elder Busbice sustained poison-gas exposure in the First World War, yet a heart attack, not that exposure, caused his death.
In 1961—the same year Wayne Busby cut "Rock and Roll Atom" in the studio—the younger brother received a three-year prison sentence after conviction for forging an amphetamine prescription. Narcotics detectives cited the musician's nickname as the lead that identified him. Brother Wayne, then an Army Major and occasional recording artist residing in the Washington area, petitioned the judge to shorten the sentence; the request, supported by several bluegrass-appreciative legislators, ultimately succeeded. Dr. Wayne Busbice continues to own and operate Old Home Place Music, whose catalog exceeds 200 songs, at least 40 of them penned by the proprietor. The memoirs of the artist formerly known as Wayne Busby are slated for publication in 2006, featuring a foreword by Grand Ole Opry announcer Eddie Stubbs.
"Ah! Buzz!" quoth guest Igor when he got the latest message.
The home office received immediate notification despite the late hour. "It is the Buzz Busby thing, don't say I didn't warn you," Igor began. "The Wayne Busby biography, mainly, but also the Buzz Busby, possibly the Busby Brothers...did we do that?" Papers rustled on the receiving end. "Remember I thought some of the details and quotes were spurious. You can never trust details about poison gas attacks. They should have learned that in the first Gulf War."
Primary focus belongs to Wayne Busby, whose legal name is Dr. Wayne Busbice, because he took the initiative to correct errors circulating about the Busby Brothers, a vintage country and western act. The better-known Buzz Busby, born Bernarr Busbice, has lacked Internet access since his death in 2000. A sharp divergence between documented military records and music journalism appears in the initial claim that "Wayne Busby chose to pursue a military career" instead of committing to music full-time as Buzz Busby did.
"I pursued a career primarily in education," Dr. Wayne Busbice advised in a 2006 shout-out. Employment in public schools carried him from classroom teacher through counselor, assistant principal, and principal. Parallel military service included four years of active Air Force duty plus Air National Guard tenure ending in retirement at the rank of lieutenant colonel. "Duties as inspector general and director of logistics" followed, Busbice continues, and he "rose to the rank of Major."
A secondary pursuit involved the Webco record label. The artist participated in both engineering and management for several independent country releases. Busbice held ownership from 1981 through 1990, directing a recording studio, record label, and music publishing company named Old Home Place Music. "I sold it to Bill Emerson," Busbice says, acknowledging a transaction contrary to customary cautions against contractual dealings with bluegrass musicians. Subsequent transfers placed the complete catalog assembled under Busbice and then Emerson with the sympathetic Pinecastle firm.
Returning to earlier years, the physician objects to a harshly negative quotation ascribed to him. Nine siblings endured hardship on the family farm, harvesting cotton and growing food for both consumption and sale. Such accounts typically frame the upbringing as an ordeal relieved only by country music broadcasts. "I don't believe 'It was horrible -- best I can say for it' about our early life is my quote," Busbice says. "It sounds like something Buzz might have said. It definitely does not reflect my opinion," he concludes firmly.
Weekly entertainment for many rural Southerners of that period centered on the Grand Ole Opry broadcast from WSM in Nashville each Saturday night. The Busbice household likewise tuned in to the Louisiana Hayride, a program on which brother Buzz Busby would later perform, although period sources occasionally list both siblings in the cast. Setting associations straight, Busbice notes that he did "occasionally play with the Bayou Boys, but never belonged to the group. I did organize and perform with the Busby Brothers." The sibling act formed when Wayne Busby and LeMoyne Busby began experimenting with guitars and transmitted their country music knowledge to young Buzz Busby at age eight. The three performed popular radio country numbers, initiating a family musical tradition that later turned professional.
The Busby boys occasionally entered the rockabilly sphere as well, though Wayne Busby's recording of a number entitled "Live Your Life with Care" may have seemed incongruously mild-mannered in that context. Perhaps the lyric offered counsel to Buzz Busby, whose career later foundered amid alcoholism and drug addiction. "At any rate, life was tough for the Busbice family and taking care would have been a real challenge," served as a somewhat trite preface to erroneous statements regarding father Otis Busbice. The elder Busbice sustained poison-gas exposure in the First World War, yet a heart attack, not that exposure, caused his death.
In 1961—the same year Wayne Busby cut "Rock and Roll Atom" in the studio—the younger brother received a three-year prison sentence after conviction for forging an amphetamine prescription. Narcotics detectives cited the musician's nickname as the lead that identified him. Brother Wayne, then an Army Major and occasional recording artist residing in the Washington area, petitioned the judge to shorten the sentence; the request, supported by several bluegrass-appreciative legislators, ultimately succeeded. Dr. Wayne Busbice continues to own and operate Old Home Place Music, whose catalog exceeds 200 songs, at least 40 of them penned by the proprietor. The memoirs of the artist formerly known as Wayne Busby are slated for publication in 2006, featuring a foreword by Grand Ole Opry announcer Eddie Stubbs.