Sept. 30, 1972: Bud Perry & The Western Union

 A study in musical tenacity. With all their other responsibilities, it’s remarkable that these real truck drivin’ men managed to carve out any time at all to get together and play. 

Sept. 30, 1972 

Their Audiences Enjoy Same Songs 

Bud Perry and Western Union

Plan Old Barn’s First Jamboree 

ALWAYS THOUGHT OF The Old Barn on Grover Road just west of East Aurora as a rock music place. Kids, in fact, do boogie there three nights a week to live bands. But never on Saturday.

        What owner Dick Flaig, Holland Speedway’s number one auto pilot, goes for on Saturdays is a jolly, laid-back roadhouse atmosphere to complement the new paint and the improved lighting.

        So out come the white tablecloths. A waitress to bring pitchers of beer to the crowd of predominantly married couples. And emanating from that old glass-brick stage is country music.

        Bud Perry & The Western Union have been holding down Saturday nights since December. It’s their second stint here and at the moment it’s just about all their day jobs leave them time for.

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“WE HAVEN’T had a practice since we’ve had Hugh,” bass guitarist Paul Ryerse says. “I drive truck, Bud drives truck and it’s crazy hours. You never know what time you’re getting home.”

        Sometimes that can make for close calls. Paul had to take a tanker of liquefied gas to Pittsburgh last weekend and caught flat tires in his tandem wheels going out and coming back.

        “The second one blew 30 miles inside the state line,” he says. “I just dropped down to 45 mph and brought her in like that. Otherwise I wouldn’t have had enough time to get to The Barn.”

        Luckily, too, Hugh Jones is a lead guitarist with a good ear for picking up songs. In six weeks, he’s gotten virtually all the regular material plotted out. All he really needs is to learn the popular side of the group’s record.

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THE SIDE he knows is the uptempo “Happiness Is Just A Thing Called You.” “Color Me Gone,” laden with steel guitar by Buddy Donahue of Happy Mann’s group, is the one that WWOL is playing.

        Bud, who wrote the two songs with former lead guitarist Timmy Smith (now departed to play on the road), delivers the classic country love lyrics with a warm Faron Young-inspired voice that seems made for this kind of material.

        “I like Faron Young’s style,” Bud says. “He’s kinda middle of the road and his songs have more than three chord changes in them.”

        It took six weeks from the time they recorded at Mark Custom Studios in Clarence Center until they got their first 500 copies of the record. Two weeks later they had less than 100 left and were planning to order 500 more.

        “We got a backer from North Tonawanda who paid for the sessions. He’s either nuts or he likes us,” Bud jokes. “Actually, it was our third offer like that, so we figured we might as well give it a try. We’ll make enough to pay the guy back.”

* * *

THAT OFFER came at the Eastern States Country Music competition last March on Grand Island. Bud and the band had just won the duet trophy for the job he and Timmy Smith did on the Everly Brothers’ “Cryin’ In The Rain.”

        Hopefully next month, when early sunsets shorten Bud’s concrete truck days and Paul won’t have to fill in for guys on vacation, maybe then there’ll be time for harmonies again and learning new songs.

        They also figure they’ll have time to set up and host The Old Barn’s first jamboree. That’ll be some Sunday in early November, but no date’s been set.

        What eases the pressure is that the crowd at The Old Barn comes back Saturday after Saturday, wanting to hear mostly the same songs.

        No night is complete without a request for “Folsom Prison” or “Kiss An Angel Good Morning.” There’s a few truck-driving songs in there too. “Truck Drivin’ Man.” “Six Days On The Road.” “White Line Fever.”

        What also helps is Bud’s memory. He says he has about 500 songs logged in his repertoire. “I don’t read music,” he says. “I just figure out the chords by ear and my wife types out the words. She takes ‘em down off the records in shorthand.”

        Bud’s ballad voice gets a touch of reverb and comes through best in the slow and medium-tempo songs.

        Hugh throws off neatly-stated rockabilly guitar solos with ease. Paul, who’s been with Bud since the beginning, is a solid bass and compact drummer Joe Mandeville works mostly with country-shuffle rhythms.

* * *

ONE OF the high points of Saturday night is a ‘50s rock ‘n roll medley which invariably contains a few surprises.

        “We never rehearse the thing,” Bud says. “We’ll go into the break and I’ll be standin’ there thinkin’ about what we’re gonna do next.

        “Would we play more nights? Sure, but right now time’s completely against us.”

        “That’s what makes it hard,” Paul says. “Like tonight I gotta leave at 4 in the morning to go down to Butler, Pa., and I won’t be back for almost two days. That’s what makes it hard, but that’s the way it goes if you gotta make a living.” 

The box/sidebar: 

Finally Found a Name 

Pertinent information about Bud Perry & The Western Union:

        Bud Perry, 31, vocals and guitar, West Seneca High School, Army veteran, truck driver, married, three boys.

        Paul Ryerse, 32, bass guitar, Lake Shore Central, truck driver, married, five children.

        Hugh Jones, 29, lead guitar, grew up on Cattaraugus Indian Reservation, Gowanda High School, Marine Corps veteran, union carpenter, married, five boys.

        Joe Mandeville, 23, drums, Frontier Central, window display man for Seneca Mall store, single.

        Bud (nobody ever calls him by his real name, George) got serious about guitar-playing again about four years ago when Paul, a fellow Bethlehem Steel truck driver, talked him into moving out near him in Highland-On-The-Lake.

* * *

BUD HAD picked up guitar in the Army, played in a Ventures-style band in service and civilian clubs in Germany, then came home and pretty much left his guitar in its case.

        Now Bud was enthusiastic again. He talked Paul, a former trumpet player, into learning bass and they picked up Don (Booboo) Omicoly, who used to be with Boots Hanner, the towering country singer from Derby.

* * *

“WE PLAYED our first jamboree down in the Revere Inn in Silver Creek where Boots played, still plays there, and we were scared,” Bud says, “but they didn’t throw us out or nothin’ so we figured we were OK.”

        Joe, who formerly played commercial rock with Ronnie Olson and country with Bobby Willard, joined last January. Hugh came in after sitting in for the departed Timmy Smith a couple weeks. He played rock in high school and sat in with many country bands.

        Western Union was a name Bud chose after he lost two other names. They printed up 1,000 “Bud Perry & The Country Squires” cards, only to find that Happy Mann already had the name.

        “Then,” Bud says, “we called ourselves Bud Perry & The Country Road. That lasted one week. Some guy came in and told us he liked our name so much he went in and registered it for himself.”

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IN THE PHOTO: Bud Perry (standing with guitar) and The Western Union, from left, Hugh Jones, Joe Mandeville and Paul Ryerse.

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FOOTNOTE: Google can’t tell us much about these guys. Bud moved down to Angola and died in 2013. Paul Ryerse (or Paul Jr.) became a code enforcement officer in the Town of Evans and the Town of Hamburg.