NEWPORT - Four years ago, Henry Boyce opened the Rock ‘N’ Roll Highway 67 Museum in Newport with a small collection of photographs, some vinyl recordsand an old guitar or two to showcase the “rockabilly” music made popular in northeast Arkansas in the 1950s.
Now, on the eve of this weekend’s Depot Days - an annual downtown Newportfestival that pays tribute to the area’s musical heritage - the museum is showcasing much more.
Boyce has found additional photographs, an old drum set used by Sonny Burgess and the Pacers,several other instruments, records, old microphones, a 1957 turntable and posters promoting the concerts held five decades ago in clubs along U.S. 67.
He also added a series of displays that chroniclethe emergence of the music - including how the introduction of electricity by the Rural Electrification Act of 1933 in Jackson County changed the way musicians performed.
Boyce has continued to search out more exhibits. He found a 4-foot-by-4-foot sign from Bob King’s King of Clubs,one of the scores of nightclubs where Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Sonny Burgess, Billy Lee Riley and Jerry Lewis performed. The club burned in 2010.
He recently obtained two posters promoting a March 22, 1961, show by Carl Mann at the B&I Club in Swifton and an April 1, 1961, show by Conway Twitty at the Silver Moon in Newport.
Boyce plans to complete his museum, still a work in progress, by spring.
The museum was named a finalist for last year’s Henry Award, given annually by the Arkansas Governor’s Conference on Tourism, and people from as far away as Sweden and Australia have visited.
“I had no idea there was so much rock ‘n’ roll history up that highway,” Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism Director Richard Davies said of U.S. 67. “It’s amazing. Henry has taken all that had happened there and turned it into a museum. If someone has never seen that, it’s a good excuse to get up there.”
The museum, at Second and Hazel streets, has weekday hours, but Boyce, who serves as the 3rd Judicial District prosecuting attorney will open it from noon to 4 p.m Saturday to accommodate the Depot Days crowd. More than 5,000 are expected to attend the oneday music festival held at an old train depot on the banks of the White River.
“People can see the museum and then just walk over to the depot and hear the music,” Boyce said.
Rockabilly, a somewhat derogatory term that defines the convergence of country music, blues and early rock ‘n’ roll, had its heyday along U.S. 67 from Newport to Pocahontas in the 1950s. Musicians played at the clubs and honky-tonks along the road, honing their craft and musically laying groundwork for future acts such as the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin and Bruce Springsteen.
The idea to create the museum first began when Boyce realized that his love for music history exceeded his ability to play an instrument.
He sold his drum set while in high school, bought his first real stereo and began listening to the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Yes and other groups of the 1960s and 1970s. He played album-oriented rock and blues-influenced rock on the stereo and began researching their origins.
“It transformed the way I felt about the influences of rock ‘n’ roll,” he said. “Theearly Beatles’ songs were renditions of the ‘rockabilly’ music from the 1950s.”
After graduating high school in Newport, Boyce went to law school at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, but the area’s music stayed with him.
“I’d listen to the Beatles as a teenager [in the 1970s],” he said. “But I saw that once you got past the early hits where you’d listen to them and clap your hands, there was this transition to their music. It occurred to me to do some research, and I realized how influential the early pioneers were on later musicians.”
Several performers, including Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin, Springsteen and Dylan, have credited the rockabilly musicians who traveled up and down U.S. 67 as influences. Dylan, while playing at the Robinson Center Music Hall inLittle Rock in 1992, acknowledged Riley and called him to the stage to sing his song “Red Hot.”
Boyce was friends with Payton Burgess, one of Sonny Burgess’ sons, and he had access to his photographs, including pictures of Burgess with Springsteen and Plant.
Displayed prominently in the museum as a tribute is a large 3-foot-by-4-foot photograph of Sonny Burgess and the Pacers playing a Christmas concert at the University of Arkansas-Monticello in 1958.
“It’s a fantastic setup,” Burgess said of the museum. “It’s great that young people can see this and talk about it. Music has changed so much over the years. Country has gone soft rock now. People don’t realize what they’re missing until they see this. Maybe we’ll get some new fans.”
In addition to his museum, Boyce has also organized the annual Depot Days. He’s done it for the past 14 years, lining up the musical acts and reserving spots for vendors.
One year, he brought in drummers from the rockabilly era and called it the “Salute to Sidemen.” Another year, he featured the group the Georgia Satellites.
Autographed posters of each of those shows line the museum wall.
“Each show had the focus on the preservation of rock ‘n’ roll,” Boyce said.
Boyce’s father, Sam Boyce, a Newport lawyer who ran for Arkansas governor in 1966, was also once a musical promoter while earning his law degree at the UA-Fayetteville.
“I guess I followed his footsteps everywhere,” Henry Boyce said of his father. “He grew up in the period when Jackson County played host for the musicians who played the dozens of night clubs.
“It was the springboard of the first real generation of musicians,” he said. “I want to show the historical significance of that.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 09/27/2013