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with the deal with Mercury and looked to
other labels to find a larger market for
songs or performers that exceeded D’s
limited resources. He leased material to
MGM, for example, but forged a stronger
relationship and a better deal with United
Artists Records when it began to try to
establish a foothold in the country music
market in 1961, essentially becoming the
label’s head of country A&R.
Initially, the relationship with UA
involved placing hot or promising D
material with the larger label, like Tony
Douglas’ hit
Shrimpin’.
Soon, however,
Daily was doing with UA what he’d done
with Mercury: bringing them the cream of
his stable of artists, recording new material
in Nashville meant specifically for United
Artists. Glenn Barber was the first of these,
and then on September 27, 1961, the day
before Daily produced George Jones’ final
sessions for Mercury, he took Burns and
Country Johnny Mathis into Bradley’s
Film & Recording Studio to cut a split
session.
Daily must have worried if either man
was worth the risk, especially with Jones
already giving him as many headaches as
hits. Burns may have been on the rebound,
but Mathis, who had been part of Daily’s
stable since 1957, had been as problematic
as Jones had been - and as erratic as Burns
had been his first time around with Daily
- drinking heavily, selling parts or all of
songs for ready cash, generally sabotaging
his career and Daily’s investment. But he
was a great writer and a fine singer and
Daily stuck with him. While Mathis cut
the minor classic
Thinking Too Far
Behind,
Burns cut two songs credited to
himself, Buddy Word and Walt Breeland,
Patches On My Heart
and
Blue House
Painted White.
According to Johnny Bush, whose
Devil’s Disciple
Burns would cut the
following March, Daily’s bringing Burns
back into the fold was tactical more than
anything else.
“Pappy…had called him
in…to piss George Jones off,”
Bush writes
in ‘Whiskey River
.
’
“Jones was getting
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