Ricky Nelson was considered to be the first true American teen idol. A fixture on television when it was in its infancy from the time he was a child, the precocious youngster grew up in front of the eyes of millions of Americans in the hugely popular TV show The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriett, which is still the longest-running, live action sitcom in TV history, clocking in at 14 years.
Ricky Nelson was the real-life son to Ozzie and Harriet Nelson and appeared first on their syndicated radio show, and then alongside his brother David on television from 1952 to 1966.
As he moved into his late teens by the mid-1950s, Ricky’s passion for music and desire to be a legitimate recording artist led him to become a pioneer of the pre-Beach Boys southern California rock sound as he began to write, record and release a string of massively popular and influential singles and albums – many under the production acumen of his visionary dad Ozzie.
On the back of hit singles such as Poor Little Fool, Travelin’ Man, Hello Mary Lou, and covers of I’m Walkin’ and I Got A Woman and many others, Nelson has sold a remarkable 230 million 45s and LPs, continuing his hit making ways into the early 1970s with Garden Party. By that time he was once again regarded as a pioneer, being one of the first artists to create music that crossed over into both the country and rock realms.
Twenty years after his tragic death in a plane crash, Nelson’s twin sons Gunnar and Matthew, chart-topping hit makers in their own right in the early 1990s, continue to tour with a special multimedia tribute show called Ricky Nelson Remembered throughout North America. It makes a few rare Canadian stops this month including from Aug. 16 to 20 at Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls, at the CNE in Toronto on Aug. 23 and the Empire Theatre in Belleville on Aug. 24.
Gunnar Nelson told Music Life Magazine that the show started more than a decade ago as simply a one off performance and his blossomed into a wildly popular and sophisticated presentation that usually hits 70 to 100 stops a year.
“Firstly, we wanted to go on and make our own mark on music and we did that. So for years we never did any of our dad’s tunes at all just out of respect. Our generation of Nelsons have been pretty committed to going out and doing our own thing. But music journalists and critics were always asking us about our dad’s music, even though the kids buying our records have no idea. Eventually it was starting to wear us down,” he said from his home in Nashville.
“We’ve been building it and growing it over the last 10 years and it’s really been because of the public response. This was something we were only going to do for one or two shows and it’s just been building and it’s to the point now where it’s totally a proper show. It’s more something that belongs on a performing arts theatre stage or Broadway stage.
“Our dad was the most televised rock star in history, so we put a lot of big screen videos in the show and we tell the stories behind the songs and it’s really developed into a big production where you’re also hearing about our family’s history in the entertainment business.”
Nelson said it was a casual conversation from rock guitar legend Peter Frampton that set him and his brothers on their remarkably successful and emotionally rewarding path.
“We were on tour one night with Styx and Peter Frampton and Peter came up and said, ‘hey you know in England when I was growing up, I really loved the guitar solo on Hello Mary Lou when I was learning how to play guitar. It was one of the first ones I learned. Can I do that with you guys tonight in your set?’ When someone like Peter Frampton asks you it’s like oh sure, yeah we can do that,” Gunnar said with a laugh.
“Also at that time we got a call from the commander of a U.S. military base in Japan and he was a huge Ricky Nelson fan and said there were tons of sailors there who can’t get home for Thanksgiving and they’re feeling homesick and the brass is throwing them a big party would we be willing to go there and do a set of dad’s stuff. We said fine because we’d do anything to support the troops. And we also felt that if we sucked, we were halfway around the world and nobody would hear about it.
“We did it and we noticed that most of the sailors and servicemen were 19 or 20 years old and had no idea who Ricky Nelson was but they were having such a great time and the music was so good and the room felt so good, that was really the moment where Matt and I turned to each other and said maybe we can do a completely separate special show and honour dad’s music. That’s where the idea was born. But in the beginning it was just a standard rock and roll show and the toughest decision we had was what songs to fit into the set because he had more than 40 top-40 hits.”
The show is what Nelson likes to describe as a high-tempo rock and roll celebration combined with an A&E Biography, as the audience gets an entertaining lesson about the legacy of the Nelson family over its 80 years in show business.
“When we first started doing the show we were seeing three generations of fans – our fans, our dad’s fans and their parents. Here we are more than a decade later and we’re actually seeing five generations of some families coming to our show. It’s a family-friendly show that does appeal to everybody. The young kids have no idea who Ozzie and Harriet were or who even Ricky Nelson was and they sometimes don’t even know who Matthew and I are, they were just dragged to the show, but they end up having a great time,” he said.
“We do it in such a way as it gives a lesson in rock history and what was going on at the time, with the storytelling and the video going along with it. It truly is theatre of the mind and kids get a whole rock education but it goes down with a spoonful of sugar.”
Ricky Nelson learned the ins and outs of the often harsh and carnivorous entertainment industry by watching how Ozzie and Harriet handled their business affairs. He in turn passed that wisdom and experience on to Gunnar, Matthew and their sister Tracey, an actress who has performed on stage on in TV series and movies, probably best known for her recurring roles on Square Pegs and Father Dowling Mysteries.
“I suppose one thing that Matthew and I learned is having a sense of humour in our approach. You can take the music seriously, you can take the art seriously, just don’t take yourself too seriously, and nowadays that’s really refreshing. It’s so funny coming from an industry where now the paradigm is all about ego. It’s all about ‘look at me, look at me,’ and how many Facebook or Twitter followers you have. We’re living in an era where, seriously, the focus is on fame not ability. Back when our grandparents were doing their thing, first with their big band in the 1930s, people were celebrated. They were celebrities because they had a unique and particular skill that was extraordinary. They put in their thousands of hours of work and practice to get good,” he said.
“And back then you had to be a triple threat: you had to be able to act, you had to be able to dance and you had to be able to sing, and that was the standard to even just have a chance to make it. You had to put in a lifetime’s worth of work and sacrifice to be a so-called celebrity. Now someone can do something dumb on YouTube and they can be a star and make tons of money and be on Dancing With the Stars. What I really admire and love about my family’s pedigree is that there was no substitute for hard work. Even way back with Ozzie and Harriet, they put in thousands of hours trying to be the best they possibly could be, and they taught that to their son. So when he started making music, it meant he took it seriously and put his entire heart and soul into it and did the work he had to do.”
Ozzie Nelson was an entertainment pioneer and, his grandson believes, a true visionary who never gets the credit he deserves for his innovative thinking.
“Our dad never got all the awards, he didn’t get lots of Grammys or all that stuff because he wasn’t coming from ego. He didn’t really give a shit about that stuff; he just wanted to entertain people. And Ozzie was the same. He had the longest running live action sitcom in history – more than 14 years and 435 episodes. He invented six camera techniques that people use every single day and he never got a single Emmy Award. And that’s because he didn’t kiss the ass of the industry. It wasn’t important to him to go to the parties and do the politicking and be ego driven. He just wanted to make good art,” his grandson said.
“My dad had to deal with questions about nepotism but his career speaks for itself, and we had to deal with the same thing, but our career also speaks for itself. The answer to those questions and critics is to just be undeniably good. Before he died my dad told us, ‘when they turn that light on you just be better than they expect you to be.’ That’s something Ozzie and Harriet and our dad really taught us.”
Gunnar said his father continues to this day to be slighted by many music critics – written off as a teen television sensation who had a music career foisted upon him because of his high profile. But the proof of his true influence as a performer and musician comes from the accolades he has received over the years from rock luminaries who testify to his ground-breaking talent.
“The proof of his excellence is self-evident in the records themselves. Throw on a Ricky Nelson record and it’s slammin’ even today. Just the way it’s recorded and the way it sounds, you can tell it’s genuine and authentic. I have had conversations with people like Jimmy Page and Brian May {of Queen] and they said they started to learn guitar to those records. They both said they heard Travelin’ Man for the first time and wanted to play guitar. And I love Led Zeppelin and I love Queen so that makes me feel very good. I had a conversation with Sam Phillips of Sun Records about two months before he died and he said he tried to get dad on his label from the very beginning but couldn’t do it because Ozzie was way to savvy a businessman to allow it. He said to me, ‘Gunnar, I just want you to know, no bones about it, whenever your dad would come out with a new single all of us Sun guys, including the artists like Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins and sometimes even Elvis, we’d jump in the Cadillac and roll down to the record store like all the other kids and buy the new Ricky Nelson record to hear what he was doing out in California,’” he explained.
“A lot of artists have paid tribute to my dad over the years, and we have some of those clips in the show. One thing I noticed that they all have in common is that they sound a little pissed because they are pre-empting the ignorance they really felt was focused on our dad by critics who found it far more comfortable to simply write him off as another made-for-TV fabrication. And these very real artists are saying ‘you guys are idiots. Did you even stop to really listen to the records?’ Most of the British guys didn’t even know he was a TV star. That’s what Paul McCartney said. He said he never got the TV show, never saw pictures of him; he just got the records and said, ‘holy shit, what’s this.
“Shoot, somewhere in the first few pages of Bob Dylan’s autobiography he said he started writing songs and playing guitar because of Ricky Nelson. It’s right there and I know they wound up becoming really good friends. Who would have thought, based on what a lot of naysayers believed, that one of the greatest rock poets of our time was really inspired by our dad because he wanted to make the girls swoon just like Ricky Nelson did.”
Part of Nelson’s success was due to the talents of his early sideman, guitarist James Burton. A long-time friend of Elvis Presley, Nelson also worked alongside Presley’s legendary guitar player Scotty Moore and his back-up singers, The Jordanaires.
“As a guitar player I can now understand why so many people were influenced by those early Ricky Nelson records because the playing is absolutely brilliant. If you just played James Burton’s guitar parts from those records you’re going to have an amazing vocabulary of incredible guitar skills, I promise you. I am living proof. Before we started doing those songs, I could play crunchy rock and roll rhythm guitar. When you’re playing dad’s stuff, the sound is all cleaned up and there’s no hiding behind distortion and the fuzz. If you suck, everybody can hear it. I not only get to appreciate my dad’s records but I get to hang out with James from time to time and he is truly my mentor and a living link to my dad. And he is still playing amazing guitar to this day at age 76,” Nelson said.
Ricky Nelson died in 1986 just as Matthew and Gunnar were close to garnering their same sort of mainstream success as their dad and grandparents. Under the name Nelson, they released their debut major label album After the Rain in 1990 on Geffen Records, which topped out at an impressive #17 on the Billboard charts and was certified double platinum in the U.S. on the strength of hit singles More Than Ever, Only Time Will Tell, the title track (Can’t Live Without Your) Love and Affection.
The latter went number one on the charts, making them the third generation of Nelson to accomplish this feat as Ricky went number one with Poor Little Fool and Travelin’ Man and Ozzie and Harriet did the same in 1935 with the tune And The Some, putting the family in the Guinness World Book of Records for the feat.
Massive changes within the music industry led to the Nelson’s going independent throughout the later 1990s and 2000s but they continued to release albums, including 2015s Peace Out on Frontiers Records.
Gunnar and Matthew still tour as Nelson as well as doing the tribute show to their dad. They also tour a seasonal Christmas show and occasionally join up with other 1980s rockers in the supergroup Scrap Metal.
“We actually have a gig in September in Oklahoma and our guests are going to be Kip Winger [of Winger], Lita Ford, Jeff Scott Soto (Yngwie Malmsteen, Journey, Trans-Siberian Orchestra) and me and Matthew. And I believe Mark Slaughter (Vinnie Vincent’s Invasion, Slaughter) is going to be there too.
It’s the world’s greatest guilty pleasure wedding band. It’s nothing but a pile of fun. We’re all friends, we all love each other and we respect each other as musicians. What is really great and liberating for all of us is we work together for a night playing each other’s music. For a night I get to be in Winger, or Lita Ford’s band or Slaughter, or Night Ranger when Kelly Keagy joins is. It’s a great fun,” he said.
Fans looking for a little musical education and a whole lot of rock and roll would be well advised to check out Ricky Nelson Remembered.
For more information on the show, as well as links to purchase tickets for the Belleville, Niagara Falls and Toronto stops, visit http://www.matthewandgunnarnelson.com/nelson-tour-dates.
* Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com
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