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Page 7 I wasn't afraid of the low IQ thing because I knew then, as I had known in the past, that it wouldn't hurt me because if you went out to get a job and they saw that you had a low IQ discharge you might never get work. But I didn't want that kind of work anyway. I'd never have to show my low IQ honorable discharge to anyone because I was going to be a singer. I was going to be a star, and I knew that in that field that it didn't matter.
As soon as I got out and back to Texas I immediately looked up the school band that I used to work with previously which was comprised of all school teachers under the direction of LaSalle Gunther. LaSalle was a brilliant piano player and I know I could always get a job with him. He taught everyone else their music. He could not read music but he would write music, a trick that I had never been able to understand. He would write notes for the horns, strings, for everybody. We had an.eight piece band. We would travel all over the Texas areas. LaSalle played his head off. He was a very gifted man. Now, my idea was one of these days I would leave Texas and go to California where I would have a better chance of becoming a solo act, singing with big bands like Count Bassie, or Lionel Hamilton. There was a chance for advancement in California. I was told it wasn't as racially prejudiced as it was here in Texas, or so I thought. My oldest brother Richard was already in California, so I knew that I'd have some company when I got out there.
I started working and performing all over town, every place I could, working during the days and singing at nights for all the very rich people throughout Tyler at private parties, weddings, things like that. Everybody in Tyler by this time knew me. I was the town crier, or singer, so to speak. I was the very popular Carl Gardner who sings for all that pay.
I did all the society parties, the debutantes balls, birthdays, anniversaries. They knew me more so than I knew them. Anybody wanted a good singer I was their man. I could sing like anybody so they'd hire me. I'd come in and sing, do about twenty -five minutes, the band would play for a few hours, I'd come back and sing another twenty f ive minutes, then that was the set. We had filled in about four hours. And for that I was getting paid like fifty bucks a night or so. I had several odd jobs one was waiting on tables at the country club just to bide my time.
Although I didn't work every night singing, at that time I knew I was well on my way. I actually wanted to be a soloist. I wanted to sing with big band. In the meantime I had married Ladessa Richardson, a young school teacher and had a daughter whose name was Brenda. I was just about twenty three and she was was a few years older.
I stayed with her for quite a while, until one night I finally got an opportunity I could not resist. This guy I met from somewhere out of the blue, I don't know where I met him to this day. I think it was somewhere in a nightclub maybe.. He told me just very casually that he was going to Califoinia the very next day and I said, "Hey, I'd like to hitch a ride with you." He said "sure." Just like that. I went home and told my wife, I said " Listen, darling, I'm leaving." She said, "what?" I said "I've got an opportunity to go to California. I got to sing, Baby." I had already told her that I was a singer at heart and that one day I would be leaving anyway.
The suddenness of it came as a total shock to her. She was very, very hurt about it and, of course , I would have been too, but I knew and she knew that this was my one golden opportunity. How else was I going to get to California? I told my wife, "Listen, I got to go. I've got a free ride. I've got fifty bucks in my pocket. My brothers lives there and some of my other famiy lives there, I'll have a place to stay. I just have to go." So I hopped a ride. A few hours later I left her and my baby daughter standing on the porch of her parents' home looking at me, just as sad as can be.
CHAPTER ONE
BLACK GOLD TEXAS TEA