He got a chance to go on American Bandstand and travel up to New York to the Apollo and so forth. He still didn't make a whole lot of money, but at least his name was spreading. |
He grabbed his chest and said the iron hit him in his chest. And he wasn't a person that believed in going to the doctor. Black men didn't go to doctors. Even to this day you have quite a few of them that refuse to go to a doctor. |
He took a lot of sales away from him. Dorsey Burnette was white, so therefore they started buying Dorsey Burnette instead of Slim Harpo. |
I guess he felt he needed to make some money. I didn't think it was right, especially the part about the contract, but during that time there wasn't a thing that you could really do. You couldn't go get a lawyer to go against Miller. This is the way it was. |
Miller made him change his voice. He was in the studio and Miller said, 'You can't sing.' Miller told him, 'Sing like you're holding your nose.' That's why he had that country sound to him. |
My father never signed another contract with Miller. But Miller had a return receipt that was supposed to be from the post office. It had some signature that nobody could recognize. Miller said my sister, who was maybe 12 years old, signed the contract. This is what he used to keep my father from recording. |
They had gone to get their passports. In all probability, I would have had the house to myself, because if he got over there, he was going to stay there and enjoy that. He did like entertaining. Entertainers get it in their minds, 'I'm a star. I'm a celebrity. Look at me.' He had the same attitude. It is an experience to think that you came from nothing to where you got millions of people that know who you are. |