SAN RECORDS 589

SAN RECORDS 589

W.B.R.T, Bardstown, KY

Sept 56

JOE BROWN and the Black Mt. Boys with Curley Sanders and the Santones

45-589-A Midnight Rhythm

(Sanders / Shirley)   (Starrite BMI)

45-589-B Fishin' Fever

(Joe Brown)   (Starrite BMI)


Once again, nothing known about Joe Brown and his band. Curley Sanders will be covered next as he has his own release after this disc. Recorded at WBRT from Bardstown, KY so perhaps Joe was a DJ there.


"Midnight Rhythm" is a nice instrumental with fiddles and a nice guitar picker (Ody Martin??) doing a fine Chet Atkins impression. (Ody was name checked by Curley in a Billboard segment.) "Fishin' Fever" is the slightly better side with fine vocals and fine support from the Black Mt. Boys and the Santones.

Email me!

Al Turner

Al Turner

2 Aug 2020 - Email from Eric Mudd - 

Hi! My name is Eric Mudd, and I am from Cox's Creek, Kentucky, just a few miles to the north of Bardstown. Joe Brown was best friends with both of my parents' dads. I actually got to meet him twice around 1996, at my dad's brother's house, a year or two before he passed away. He was a real nice guy, giving me and my cousins peppermints he usually carried in his pocket.

The first time he came over, Joe decided to tell my dad and uncles about how he came about writing "Fishin' Fever". Joe went fishing one day (presumably summer 1956) at a holding pond on the property of the now-defunct T.W. Samuels Distillery, in Deatsville, Kentucky. He had just eaten his lunch, and while he was waiting for a fish to hit his line, he started humming a little melody, then some of the lyrics started coming about, and before he forgot them, he rushed to his truck, got a pen, and wrote the song on his lunch sack. Joe was a well-known fiddler in our area, and is the one playing fiddle on the recording of "Fishin' Fever". He is also one of the fiddlers on the A side of San 589, "Midnight Rhythm".

That is all I know about the record and the man, other than that he was a decades-long employee of Jim Beam Distillery in Clermont, Kentucky. You'd think that living in the Bardstown, Ky. area that I would be able to find an original 45, but I haven't found a single one in my 12 years of collecting (maybe some day). Joe gave my dad's family a copy, but someone accidentally sat on it and well, you know...

I hope I have been able to have shed some light on San 589 for you, and can use the info. for future reference