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Pat Walsh
Pat's Peeps Podcast
Ep. 361 Today's Peep Celebrates My Mother's Birthday- A Son's Playlist: How My Mother's Records Tuned My Life To Music & Memory, Beehive Hairdos and 40 Grand Country Dance Contests
A cloudy night, a quiet studio, and a birthday that turns a microphone into a family album. We open a window onto Sacramento in the 70s—dance contests at 40 Grand Country, Channel 40 weekends, and a beehive hairdo that could out-sing the neon. From Tammy Wynette’s D-I-V-O-R-C-E to Charley Pride’s shadowed story-songs, the soundtrack of a single mom becomes a map of grit and grace, raising six kids with a console stereo and an electric frying pan that knew its way around perfect chicken.
We follow the grooves that taught me how to listen: Vaughn Monroe’s lunch-pail baritone, Bert Kaempfert’s bass-first sway, and Duane Eddy’s twang that feels like a switchblade flashed in daylight. Hank Williams gave sorrow a porch; Hank Thompson strapped rhythm to a six-pack; Hank Snow turned highways into verses. Harmony shows up in the Ames Brothers and the Mills Brothers, where breath stacks into architecture and a living room becomes a stage. Then, in a Whitefront aisle, everything tilts—Mom hears CCR’s swampy Grapevine, asks the name, and buys the record like a door she’s ready to walk through. From that moment on, deep cuts sit next to standards, and her collection widens the river I’d learn to swim.
Between memories of MASH-to-Barnaby Jones pickups and racing home for Columbo, we hold a different kind of case file: how music steadies a family, marks the hours, and keeps a loved one close long after the room goes quiet. If you love country roots, classic harmonies, and the deep-grain feel of vinyl storytelling, this journey will meet you where you live—somewhere between nostalgia and discovery, loss and the next great song.
If this story moved you, tap follow, share it with someone who raised you on records, and leave a review with the one track that takes you home.
Hello, welcome to the Pat's Peeps Podcast. You know what? I'm doing this late tonight. I'm doing it after my show. It's a Wednesday. It's my mom's birthday, 12th day of November, 2025. I'm looking out my studio window. It's dark. It's 10 34 PM. But I do know that it's it's cloudy out there and the rain is coming my way as I understand it. Hope you're doing well wherever you are. Pat's Peeps 261 and continuing. You know, last night I was seeing all these incredible pictures of the northern lights, I guess, that somehow is just, I mean, it's so fascinating and beautiful. Lighting up the sky. I was getting pictures from Colfax. It's only up the road a piece. I I couldn't see it. I'm looking out there after I get off of work. I'm trying to find it. I didn't see it, but I there were so many beautiful photos. And apparently tonight it's it's equally as good. However, uh there are clouds out there and it doesn't matter anyhow because I can't see it. But some of the folks up at the slightly upper elevations maybe can. I don't know. It's I've seen pictures from like I say, uh all around uh well, from various spots. I can't even tell you where, quite at it, but but it was beautiful nonetheless. Uh so some rain coming our way. You know, I just thought I would do this podcast tonight because it's my mother's birthday. So I hope you don't mind me sharing about my mother, Teresa Bernadette, maiden named Tungate. I know I've never I've never known another family with the name with the name Tungate. But that was my mother's maiden name. She listened to K-R-A-K Country Memories on the Crack Corralic Country Hits. We drive around in the Falcon station wagon listening to K R A K Radio, Country Radio. Billy Crash Craddock ain't nothing shaking but the leaves on the trees. What was that other song by um, you know, ah, anyway, there were so many. There were so many. So my mother sang in a country band. She sang with Dennis Barney and the Nashville Rebels, among others. I remember she went there was a place called the 40 Grand Country in Sacramento. Remember, there's a guy named Lloyd Hickey in the 40 Grand Country. Anyone remember Lloyd Hickey? They had a character on Harry Horse Collar. Come on, am I the only one that remembers this? Please tell me someone remembers this. From Sacramento. But anyhow, they would have a dance contest. They ended up having a show on the weekends. Because all the every town at one point it would have a country show on the weekends. It was either that or fishing or the wide world of sports or Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. And so some of the local people, like if you know, that they would have a show because they had a you know a business or whatever. And so Lloyd Hickey and 40 grand had a show for a while. And they had a dance contest on Channel 40, I think. And so my mother loved to dance, not only sing and draw, but dance. And so she she enters this dancing contest with 40 grand country. And I remembered a guy named Jerry that she was dancing with. And in my mind, this is the most 70s dude of all time. Like my mom had a beehive haircut. I don't know, you know, the old beehive like Tammy Wynette. Anyhow. And so Jerry had a plaid, in my mind, he had a plaid jacket, big thick horn-rimmed glasses. I could see it. Plaid, like oranges-colored jacket and the big mutton chops like Grover Cleveland or Miller. Who had the mutton chops? Was it Millard Fillmore? One of the presidents, the old timers, John Quincy Adams, kind of big beefy sideburns mutton chops. And so we go camping. April 1972. Crazy horse campground. Anyone remember Crazy Horse Campground? So we're out there camping. My mother was in PWP, Parents Without Partners, because the previous year my dad said, Adios, I gotta go. And uh he split, so now it's my mom, and she's in this group called Parents Without Partners, where it was single people, you know, with kids. And they would get together. I thought it was a great order, you know, I'm a kid, but still I could understand my mom wanted to be in this thing. So, anyhow, so we're camping with this PWP group, and my brother Jim, me and Jim, on this beautiful sunny day, the this crazy horse campground. Anyone was it was the campground up 80 or 50? I think it was 80, but anyhow. So we walk up to this little like general store up there, and they had a TV up in the corner, and they had recorded the 40 grand country for the weekend, so we knew my mother was gonna be on the TV dancing. And sure enough, we get down there, buy us some licorice and some sweet tarts or whatever, and a seven up, you know, and and and there's my mom dancing. I wish I could remember the song. Uh who knows? Oh, I know the song I was thinking of earlier. God, all of these songs remind me of my mother. So that's kind of the point of today's podcast here. 361. Yeah, I just this popped into my head. So KRK, hold on, I gotta find this one. Um, it's uh oh, hold on a second. Oh, they used to play this all the time. Remember Big Jim Hall was on there? That was a very popular radio station in Sacramento. Yeah, this guy right here, Freddie Hart. Remember this guy? Freddie Hart, I remember this as a kid. It'll always be playing on the radio. Easy loving. You know, it's interesting. So sexy looking. I remember this. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_02:I know from the feet.
SPEAKER_07:You know, as I think about this, I just literally said my dad left in 71. So this song came out in 71. I remember every song like this. My mom, when she sang in a band, as I look back at it, because now they're going through a divorce, and she was very hurt. Six kids. She had no skills in terms of work. How's she gonna feed us? We didn't have any anything. So she would sing in this band, and I remember all the songs she sang. It was it was um D-I-V-O-R-C-E by Tammy Wynette. Or oh, the snakes crawl at night, Charlie Bryde, the snakes crawl at night. Does my ring burn your finger? Um, you know, it was all of these songs that were divorce and breakup songs.
SPEAKER_03:That it comes from the home.
SPEAKER_07:But they'd play this on Karen K like every single hour. That's the thing, man. My mom had the biggest record collection. That's how I know music. Oh, here's another thing, my mom. So when my dad split, so we'd like have the weekends, we'd go stay with my dad and my stepmother now in their condominium off of 47th Street. Now you can imagine the boys would go visit them in this little condo. We called it a condominium. Essentially, it was a tiny two-room apartment now that I look back on it. And so there would be me, Jim, Steve, Tim, and Ray, five boys sleeping on the floor in the upper apartment until they finally got a home, and then we ended up moving in with them. And so on the weekends, you know, my mom didn't want to give us up, but so she'd have to take us over there. Then she'd pick us up on a Sunday night, and I still remember, God, like this is 1973. And I remember it would be Barnaby, it would be MASH, the MASH theme, and I knew right then when the ending of MASH, the theme played the end of MASH that my mom would be pulling up outside at right at that moment. So it would go from the MASH theme right into Barnaby Jones. Remember that? Barnaby Jones, Barnaby Jones. What was his name? The guy that played Jed Clampett. I'm sorry. I don't want to digress too much. But my mom, anyhow, I'll think of that in a second. Dang it. See, now my mind's racing too much. Come on. I love him. What's his name? Uh Buddy Ebsen. Thank you. Thank you, Google. But she'd be like, all right, kids, as soon as she pull up. Kids, get in a station wagon. I want to be home in time to watch Columbo. Gotta get home to watch Columbo.
SPEAKER_00:Well, listen, there's one other thing I wanted to ask you about. Um, the fellow that lesson worked with, Dr. Murchison. Uh, I can't find him, and I was wondering whether you can help me. Apparently he goofed up on some expensive project that he was working on. Gee, I've seen this picture every day for 12 years.
SPEAKER_07:Columbo always had it figured out. He just kind of toy with them. You always knew who the you always knew who committed the crime. It'd be like the big star like Dick Van Dyck, or, you know, just the Robert Conrad. You're a beautiful woman. At any rate, uh what was his name?
SPEAKER_00:Um I've got Dr. Murchison's telephone number and I've called him. Uh, but I haven't had any luck. Can you help me?
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, so my mom, she wanna be on in uh she wanna be home in time for Columbo. God bless you, Mom. I love ya. She used to watch those soap operas. The Edge of Night. The Secret Storm. Dark Shadows. So the main influence, well, one of the main influences certainly for my beautiful mother is music. My dad played baseball. I love baseball. I mean, my mother loved music, my dad loved baseball. My two favorite things in the world, practically my two favorite things, are music and baseball. It wasn't that they forced it on me, they never said, Pat, you should really they didn't. I just, for whatever reason, I wanted a baseball glove and I wanted to check out my mother's record collection. I thought it was incredibly fascinating that she'd have all of these records. And I would just and with a big Curtis Mathis console stereo. You remember if back in the day, man, if back in the 60s, you had the big console. Like in the 70s, like the speakers on the side turned to velvet, but before that, it was some kind of weird material. I can't even tell you. With little cross-check patterns on it, and it would have like a record player, a black and white TV. Maybe this one had color. Maybe it was our first color TV, to be honest with you, because I remember watching Daniel Boone and the FBI in color, starring Ephraim Zimbelis Jr. Please tell me someone remembers that. I'm very old. So she and she had the and it'd be a rec, you know, the cabinet with the records in there. You slide the doors open, but then she had a ton of them sitting next to it because she had so many records. She loved going record shopping, and I love going with her. So I would learn all of this music. I would listen to everything. This is, again, people say, wow, you know a lot about music. I do. Thank you to my mother. Also, I'm gonna play a few examples if you'll allow me. Hope they don't hate me for doing this. I don't own their rights to these. This is Vaughn Monroe, Ballerina. Pat's Peeps 261. Do you feel regular? This guy, when I was, so I'm gonna give you my impressions here of my impression of the music as a kid. This one is I was a kid. I'd I'd be listening to this. There's ballerina damn. The guy's voice to me always sounded like like he was a dude. It was a carried a lunch pail, wore a hard hat, maybe worked on construction or something, or did something like that, very blue collar. And he'd be at work hammering. I'm gonna sing away, because I'm a hammering on this two by four. All you know, and like his buddies go, hey, uh, you know, Vaughn, you know, during lunch, you ever thought about taking up singing? I you got a pretty good voice. I know. Isn't that weird? But he's got like this voice that doesn't sound like your typical, I don't know, I don't know how to explain it.
SPEAKER_01:You mustn't once forget a dancer has to dance the parina.
SPEAKER_07:Then they had this guy, my mother had this record, it was the greatest hits by this guy, Bert Campford and his orchestra. So he's like a German band leader, and he's actually the guy that made that produced the first Beatles album. We just talked about that on a previous uh one, our Beatles tour on one of my podcasts, where I brought that up to Ian, who was our tour leader. He's like, yes, that's exactly right. So this man, Bert Camford, was responsible. I didn't know that as a kid, but I'd put this record on, and there would be songs that reminded me of game shows. I think one of them was actually used uh in a game show with Tom Kennedy or something. I swear it was, but it would be like um Wonderland by Night, um uh African Beat. This is okay, so and I the thing about this it is just this. It's just this niche of music that has this incredibly, it's like very old style. I don't know how to describe it, I'll just play it. But but it has the cool bass. That's what I would always remember. Boom, boom, boom, boom. It's got boom, it's got the very pronounced bass, and I thought it was even as a kid, I thought, well, you know what? I like the fact that they feature the bass in the music. Von I mean, this is uh Bert Camport and his orchestra, African beats. You know, it was kind of I kid I wanted it to be hokey in my head, but I could never make it as I liked it. I'm throwing on a lot actually. You're like ten years old grooving to this. I just explore something completely different musically. If the guy's name was Hank, I was gonna get to know Hank. Hank Williams got to know him first.
SPEAKER_02:What you got cooking? How's about cooking something up with me?
SPEAKER_07:Hank is right up there with my all-time favorite artist, Hank Williams.
SPEAKER_02:Don't you think maybe we could find us a brand new recipe.
SPEAKER_07:But again, if his name was Hank, I would know about him. And I gravitated towards him. I back then I really liked, I think as the the older I get, the more I liked Hank Williams. When I was younger, I liked Hank Thompson.
SPEAKER_04:Hey, Mr. Bartender came out the year I was born. Please don't be so slow. I got time for one more round and a six pack to go. Tomorrow morning, Sunday, I'm gonna be feeling low. So please, please part tender. I want a six pack to go.
SPEAKER_07:It felt like progressive country to me at that time, like it was gr it at a badass beat. Pardon my language.
SPEAKER_04:Just a hump beat, hump around. Don't have enough to pay my rent. I ain't gonna wear it to go. I got time for one more round.
SPEAKER_08:And a six-pack to go.
SPEAKER_07:A fada nitty. Like this cool kind of rockabilly beat, man, 1960. Hank Thompson, bats beach 361. 361. Oh, check this part out. Woo! Yeah. Thank you, Mom. More Hank, this guy. Hank Snow. He had this nasally voice I remember thinking of, but I liked it.
SPEAKER_01:From old Montana down to Alabama and before and I'll travel again. If you drive a win and can't keep a good man down. You doubt the cards, but you missed the play. So hit the road and be on your way. Come aboard the Golden Rocket and leave the stone. I was a good engineer running on time, but baby. I'm switching to another line. So honey never hang your signal out for me. I'm tired of running on the same old track. Take it up on the back. This golden rocket's gonna roll my booze away.
SPEAKER_07:I remember he was the first artist I heard that did I've been everywhere, man. Yeah, got a little groove to it. It wasn't like your typical slow. You know what I discovered is I liked twang. I liked twang. I liked twang so much that my mother had this record. So all those country songs are like that kind of twang, had that little pee appeal to it. So I was probably, I don't know, eight or nine. And I listened to this record. And to this day, I remember putting this record on, this album on over and over as a kid, listening to it. I gravitated towards this one, and it's called Twangin the Golden Hits. Dwayne Eddy Rebel Rouser. Man, that's one you can dance to and it's just scroovy. And the whole record was good. I remember that be one right after the other. So I've always been a big Dwayne Eddy fan because of that. There were so many styles, so that's one of the things I'm the most appreciative of. The Ames brothers. Ed Ames, I you know, I mentioned Daniel Boone earlier. And he was in the show Daniel Boone. Ed Ames played um Mingo and Daniel Boone. And so I was kind of wow, he's good. And so I my I realized that he's he sings too. What? He sings. So he was part of this brothers' group, the Ames Brothers. Whole different genre. I'm really starting as I'm doing this, as I'm talking. I've never really thought about it as much as I am right now in terms of the fact that apparently the music that I was gravitating towards all had this kind of a groove or like a good beat or something. Now I'll probably play a bunch of slow stuff. But this one I always liked, the the Ames Brothers called a song called Rag Mop. I always find myself to this day, I find myself singing or whistling and singing this song. My brother Steve, too.
SPEAKER_08:I say M O P M O P O P M O P G M I said A G R G G R G G M O P P P Ragma Sorry, Ragma Giving a Good Beat.
SPEAKER_07:Then I remember So that's my memory of that. Also, this one, boy, I don't think I've listened to this one for so long. I'm gonna have to just just listen to this to try to remember. But I just remember the title. I hope it's the right one. I forgot to preview this one, but I remember running around the coffee table chasing my brothers. Yeah, here it is. As a little kid, yes. We'd have a coffee table. I was a little tyke chasing my brother around. My mom would be playing this on the console. Fiddle faddle. Oh my god, this is like a dream listening to this. Isn't this good chasing music? I mean, it's perfect. No wonder I was chasing my brother. I haven't heard this in decades. It's like it yesterday. Oh boy. Wow, that one brings back memories right there. Then I would throw on this one. It was like the student prince, Mario Lanza, and he starts singing about drinking. And now it rem I remember thinking, it's so weird this guy's he's in a suit, like this weird prince suit.
SPEAKER_03:Drink, drink, drink two eyes and a hain on me. Drink, drink, drink, red, and sweet as the fruit of the trees.
SPEAKER_07:This gotta get hit in it. Watch this. Then you want to get into another cool groove? I'd throw on the Mills Brothers, another brother group, with these great harmonies and bass.
SPEAKER_05:Everybody space.
SPEAKER_07:To this day, one of my favorite harmonizing bands.
SPEAKER_05:Don't stop the leader that it race.
SPEAKER_07:Uh, with such a gift that she turned me on to this music. The Mills Brothers forever one of my favorites now. Anytime you talk about bands that are or groups with the best harmonies, they're always in the top five for me.
SPEAKER_05:That's where I leave my future feet.
SPEAKER_07:I knew my mom was getting hip. I'm a little kid, and suddenly there's all of that music, which is great, and but it's has this older sound. And those are the sounds that I was used to up until that point. Until one day, and if you lived in Sacramento, and I don't know if they had these in other places, but one night, actually, early evening, we were in Whitefront. Whitefront store, which is, I don't know, maybe a predecessor to I don't know, Gemco, Target, what have you. They had furniture. I'm looking back, you know, clothing probably, and furniture, but certainly they had. Had a record section. And I remember one night we're walking through there. And this is again, this is when I knew my mom was kind of getting to like some cool hipper new music. And so we're walking through, and this is playing. So, you know, at the record store, they play a record to kind of draw people in. But as we're walking down the aisle from the clothing aisle towards the record section, there's a song playing on the speaker, and she can hear it. And she literally asks me. Here's my mother in her 20s, I'm sure, at the time. She says, Pat, Patrick, what is this song playing right now? Do you know? Well, I already knew the first album with featuring Suzy Q, and I said, Yeah, Mom, it's Credence Clearwater Revival. Heard it through the grapevine. To which she then made a beeline right toward the record store, the record department. Walked up, and I remember she walked up to the guy. My son says this is what is it, Patrick? It's Credence Clearwater, herded through the grapevine. Do you have this record? I guess you do, you're playing it. Yes, we do, ma'am. So I remember she bought this record. And after that, she became such a fan of Credence Clearwater Revival. Like, man, anything, any song, any deep cut, anything you can ever come up with with Credence. Some of the deep cuts, I mean, Credence has so many great songs, but some of their best, in my opinion, would be their deep cuts that you don't hear all the time. But I know those. Why? Because of my dear mother, Teresa Bernadette Walsh. And I just wanted to remember her today. She made, I wanted to remember her. She made the best fried chicken in the world, bar none. I don't care who else is whatever. No offense. If you ask any one of my six, me or any of my brothers and sisters, if you had one meal, it's your final meal, what you get one last meal, what would it be? And I promise you, they would all say separately, uh, my mother's fried chicken. I don't know what she did to make it. I know she used one of those like 1970s kind of frying pans. Remember the electric frying pan? And uh she'd make it like I'm sure with a lot of Crisco oil, but I'm telling you it was the greatest thing ever. And uh so that's just a little factoid about her, too. We lost her in 2006, Labor Day, 2006. One of the two saddest days of my entire life. I can honestly tell you that. And another thing about my mother, boy did. She loved the sound of music. When I say love, that isn't even I can barely that barely covers it. But she did, she loved it. The day I was in Austria, the morning I was in Austria, and I got to see that gazebo from the sound of music. I just remember getting emotional. Well, mom, I'm here. Rest in peace, mother, until we meet again. And thank you for listening to Pat's Peeps three hundred and sixty-one.
