My first records were the ones I discovered in my mother’s collection from the 1960s which were at my grandparents house. She had a fairly large collection and a few that that really stood out to me were LPs of Rubber Soul by the Beatles, Please Please Please by James Brown and his Famous Flames and a 45 of “I Get Around” by the Beach Boys. However, the record which intrigued me the most was a funky 45 on a yellow label I had never heard of which was autographed by the artist and had weird one word song titles.
The record was “Scratchy” b/w “Firefire” by Travis Wammack on Roland Janes’ local Memphis label, ARA. I was immediately curious about the record and when I put it on I could not believe what I was hearing. It sounded like a UFO had crash landed in a garage in Memphis and created a hybrid of something from another planet and the wilder instrumentals cut at Sun or Stax. In the middle of “Scratchy” is a break with unintelligible backwards talking, it was unbelievable someone was making records this experimental yet pop in Memphis in the mid 1960s. I asked my mother about it and she told me all about Travis Wammack. She used to see him play when she was in college and that is when she got the record signed. Since then I have had the pleasure of seeing Travis perform live a few times and I have bought and listened to many records since then but very few have jumped out of the speakers and grabbed me like that 45 rpm copy of “Scratchy.”
-Scott Bomar
Scott Bomar is a Memphis based producer, engineer and bassist in The Bo-Keys who have just released a new album called “Got to Get Back” on Electraphonic Recording.
