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Give Name: Richard William Curless
Date of Birth: March
17, 1932
Place of Birth: Fort Fairfield,
Maine
Date of Death: May 25, 1995
Biography:
“Richard William Curless was born on March 17, 1932
in Fort Fairfield, Maine. He had a musical background. Maine,
located in the Canadian border, was once colonized by the
Acadians, the same clan that became widely known as Cajuns
in Louisiana. Young Dick heard a lot of Acadian music, as
well as country-folk stuff including Jimmie Rodgers, Josh
White and others. His mother played the organ and his father,
who worked as a heavy equipment operator, sang and played
the guitar. In 1940 Curless family moved to Massachusetts.
After high school Dick joined to a local western band the
Trail Riders, and at 17 he began touring with country singers
Yodeling Slim Clark, Hal Lone Pine and Al Hawkes. A year
later in 1950 Dick moved to Bangor, Maine, but the Trail
Riders continued playing and doing some small-scale tours.
Dick made up the stage name "Tumbleweed Kid", and
got soon his own radio show in Ware, Massachusetts. At that
time he made his first recordings for the New York City-based
Standard label, and also met his future bride Pauline, with
whom he got married in 1951.
The life seemed to smile at Dick for once, but then somehow
all the happiness turned to fully opposite direction. Although
Dick had a bad eye (which is why he had to wear the eye-patch)
and serious heart problems, he was drafted and sent to the
Korean war in 1952 for two years. He and Pauline had only
six months of marriage behind, and ironically, when they
now had to say goodbye to each other for a long time, came
out that Pauline was pregnant! (Pauline gave birth to Dick's
both children, the son Rick, and the daughter Terry.)
For understandable reasons, Dick, who served as a truck-driver,
wasn't fighting all the time in Korea. On the Armed Forces
Radio Network he hosted a show as "The Rice Paddy Ranger",
and he also made a popular recording "China Nights" under
that name. After home-coming in 1954 Dick continued appearing
in television and radio shows. He also did some one-night
stands in local joints (Silver Dollar House in Bangor, for
example). When his health condition started to fail, he simply
walked away from the spotlights and returned to his home
area in Maine, spending almost a year in the wilderness,
totally separated from the publicity and without singing
a single note during this time.
In 1956 Dick was invited to New York for a CBS television's "Arthur
Godfrey Talent Show", where performed successfully "Nine
Pound Hammer". He started co-working with Event Records
of Westbrook, Maine, got himself a new manager Sol Tepper
(who used to take care of Dean Martin's business too), and
became an esteemed country'n'western singer. Unfortunately,
the hard working and a stress caused him another untimely
retirement. Living the rest of year isolated in Maine, he
finally reunited in 1959, and did occasional shows in Hollywood
and Las Vegas. The most time of the next five years Dick
performed at the night clubs and hotels around his home town
Bangor. In 1960 he toured in the West Coast for a while,
and came home just to find out his home was entirely wrecked
by a hurricane! Ain't that enough bad luck for one man, huh?
Despite the stagnation of his music career, Dick managed
to get a chance to make his first LP. When the Event Records
Company split up, and one of its ex-owners set up a new label
out of Boston called Tiffany Records ,and Dick came along.
In the late 1950's Tiffany released only one single by him,
although he recorded lots of excellent material for them.
In 1959 these sides were included to his debut album "Dick
Curless Sings Songs Of The Open Country". In the early
1960's Dick didn't make any new recordings, but Tiffany continued
releasing his previous masters on other LP's titled "Singing
Just For Fun" and "I Love To Tell The Story",
which contained gospel songs only.
Around the mid-fifties Dick had made friends with a famous
copywriter and a radio person Dan Fulkerson, who wrote the
song "A Tombstone Every Mile" for him. The tune
told about a very dangerous stretch of highway through the
mountain range of Haynesville Woods, where so many truckers
had died, that there should be a tombstone every mile. In
1965 they founded together a new label Allagash Records and
a publishing company Aroostock Music. When "A Tombstone
Every Mile" came out the same year, it hit the charts
like a ton of bricks. The record's success helped Dick to
get a deal with a Capitol subsidiary, Tower Records, that
bought the rights to his Tiffany-albums, and reissued them
with new titles ("A Tombstone Every Mile" & "Hymns").
The "Tombstone" single was also reissued by Tower,
and this platter stayed at the Top Ten from Spring to Summer
of 1965. Also the later Tower 45's placed well on Billboard's
Country Hot 100. Dick Curless was now one of the hottest
names at the country'n'western market.
"The Soul Of Dick Curless" was the first Tower-album,
that included new recordings. Musically it was very diverse
record, containing songs from blues and gospel to pure rock'n'roll
- but surely not forgettin' trucker country! After this LP,
Tower released again two compilations from Dick's Tiffany
archives, "Travelin' Man" and "At Home With
Dick Curless".
In 1966 Dick was engaged to the "Buck Owens All American
Show". He toured all around the continental for two
years (1967-8) until coming back to Maine where continued
his own career at the full capacity. During this period Dick
lived in Bakersfield, and he also made several new recordings
there. In 1966 he was the other part of the duo with Kay
Adams on the album "A Devil Like Me Needs An Angel Like
You". In 1967 Dick cut two albums, "All Of Me Belongs
To You/House Of Memories" and "Ramblin' Country".
In 1968 there were two in a row again: "Long Lonesome
Road" and "The Wild Side Of Town". Both LP's
were recorded in Nashville and produced by Jack Clement.
Dick's last Tower release was a soundtrack-album of a western-flick "Killers
Three", which also featured Merle Haggard, Kay Adams
and Bonnie Owens. The collaboration with Buck Owens was now
over because of a falling-out, and sadly, it made Dick's
drinking problem harder than ever.
In 1973 Capitol released the fabulous live-LP "Live
At The Wheeling Truck Drivers Jamboree", produced by
Joe Allison. In 1974, Dick's last Capitol-album, prophetally
titled as "The Last Blues Song" came out. By then
Dick finally quitted drinking. He also moved to Branson,
Missouri, recorded for some indie labels (such as Interstate
and BD Communications), and toured the Northeast and Canada.
In 1975 Dick had most of his stomach removed, and he never
really recovered from his health problems. However, it didn't
prevent him either to record 20 new songs in 1976 at the
Hilltop company's studios in Tennessee with Curtis McPeake & the
Nashville Pickers (released only in Europe on album titled "CB
Special"). Soon after Dick experienced a religious transformation,
and retired slowly from the music business (even though MR
Records issued some his singles in the late 1970's, and he
was inducted into the Maine Country Music Hall of Fame on
April 30, 1978 and got the DECMA Country Music Pioneer Award
in 1982). In 1987 Dick returned and made the new LP "Welcome
To My World" in Norway with local musicians, which was
shortly followed by another, "It Just A Matter Of Time".
In 1989 Dick's own Allagash Records issued the LP "Close
Up" which was a tribute to his all-time singer-songwriter
favorites and colleagues, including Smokey Rogers, Hank Williams,
Jimmie Rodgers, Pee Wee King and Brook Benton (!). By 1992
Dick worked at the Cristy Lane Theater in Branson, Missouri,
and appeared randomly in TV and memorial concerts. In Germany
he was a big star all the way to the end, and in the early
1990's he made there his last duet recordings with the German
singer Tom Astor. In 1995 the world saw the last comeback
of Dick Curless, but tragically it wasn't meant to last long.
The "baron" passed away on May 25, 1995, shattered
by a stomach cancer, right after his strongly emotional Rounder
album "Traveling Through" was released.”
Text by Pete Hoppula from the website, “The Long
Lonesome Road of Dick Curless”.
(Acknowledgments: Ole Romin, Oyvinn Fodstad, Jukka Joutsi & John Morthland)
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