Kent Westberry

Kent Westberry (born May 23, 1939 in Miami , Florida ) is an American country and rockabilly musician and songwriter. Westberry began his career as a rockabilly musician in Miami in the mid-1950s and later became a successful composer. His songs have been recorded by stars like Mel Tillis , Jerry Reed , Ernest Tubb , Bob Wills and many more.

Life

Beginnings as a rockabilly

Kent Westberry was born and raised in Miami. During his high school years, Westberry founded the Chaperones in 1958 , which consisted of 14-year-old Wayne Gray ( electric guitar ), Snuffy Smith ( bass ) and Lewie Stewart ( drums ) alongside him ( vocals / guitar ) . They played together in the Miami area; her repertoire was characterized by rockabilly songs. The group was able to build a base in the region quickly and appeared on the local TV station Channel 17, was booked by the country musician Buck Trail for a few gigs in Florida and could be heard on WMIL in the Old South Jamboree .

In the same year Westberry and the Chaperones got the opportunity to record their first single My Baby Don't Rock Me / No Place to Park for Trails label Trail Records , however the master recordings were taken over by Art Records shortly afterwards as Trail closes had to. Art released the single again and another record was made, the songs of which were not from Westberry this time, but were written by the wife of a local doctor. Both singles did not make it beyond regional successes, as Art was a relatively small label.

In 1960 Westberry and his bassist Snuffy Smith moved to Nashville , where they recorded a joint single for MGM Records and accompanied Westberry's former guitarist Wayne Gray on his single Spaceman's Guitar for Gold Circle Records.

successes

One more day

3 fingers of tequila

After 1960 Westberry worked for Carl Perkins as a bass player and began working as a songwriter. He convinced his friend Charlie McCoy , also a musician from Miami, to try his luck in Nashville as well. When McCoy signed a contract with Cadence Records, Westberry composed an instrumental that would be McCoy's first single. In the meantime, songwriter Marijohn Wilkin had already written a text for it and Ann-Margret recorded the song for RCA Victor and it made it into the top 20 of the charts. Charlie McCoy played the harmonica on this recording.

Between 1961 and 1963 Westberry did his military service in the US Army and then joined Tex Ritter's companion band until 1968. In the 1970s he was able to get into the charts with songs such as Easy Lady , She Gets to Me and Cherry Berry Wine and had a few guest appearances on the Grand Ole Opry . His real success came as a songwriter. Over 480 of his titles have been recognized over the years by country and pop stars including Bob Wills, Ernest Tubb, Sammy Davis, Jr. , Jerry Reed, Eddy Arnold , Hank Williams, Jr. , Carl Perkins, Buck Owens , Charley Pride , Mel Tillis, Gene Watson , Waylon Jennings , Dolly Parton of the Beatles and many more were recorded and charted.

Kent Westberry is still active as a musician today, giving concerts playing classical country music as well as his 1950s rockabilly. He now lives in Lakeland, Florida.

Discography

Discography is not exhaustive.

year	title	Label #
1958	My Baby Don't Rock Me / No Place to Park	Trail A-103
1958	My Baby Don't Rock Me / No Place to Park	Art 172
1959	Popcorn and Candy Bars / Turkish Doghouse Rock	Art 174
1960	Bye Bye Buddy / Billy Blue Eyes (with Snuffy Smith as "Kent & Snuffy")	MGM K12883
	I Sent You Me / Married to the Juke Box	Every 10014
	One More Day / Mary Goes Round	Willex 45-72-3
	Even Roses Have Thorns / Three Fingers of Tequila	Willex 45-72-8
	Love in the Hot Afternoon / Memory Maker	Crackerbox 6743
Unpublished titles
1959	My bimini baby	Art
	I've Been Under the Weather	[Status unknown]

Web links

• Works by and about Kent Westberry in the catalog of the German National Library
• Kent Westberry's MySpace page
• Discography with audio samples